Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/76

 voiceless protest against one man's foolish courage and four men's shameless threat. The others who stood watching the oncoming tragedy were silent. Angus Valorous ceased his clatter to lean and look, breath held for the first shot. Mrs. Cowgill stood clinging to his suspenders, her eyes big with the terror that paralyzed her ready tongue.

Laylander reached the middle of the street. There he squared around to face the little bunch of men twenty yards or less along the dusty way, backing from them a little, as if the distance did not agree with his method, or to give himself more time to calculate his chance against this unexpected number. As if in derision of this maneuver, but in fact to provoke Laylander into firing the first shot, Withers jerked off his hat and flung it sailing into the space that lay between them.

Laylander fell into the trap that would give Withers an excuse in law for shooting him down. He slung out his gun and put a bullet through the hat before it struck the ground.

Louise saw Laylander skip and leap, as a boy prances to dodge rocks and confuse the aim of his assailants, when the others began to shoot; she saw the little spurts of dust around his feet, and the jerking motion of his arm as he threw a quick shot in reply.

"Stop her! stop that girl!" Mrs. Cowgill screamed.

Angus Valorous beat a frenzied tattoo on the counter with his club as Louise dashed open the screen door and ran into the street between the fighting men,