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 of his seersucker coat, displaying his pearl-handled gun. He could see the reflection of his own elegance in his shoes. Zeb Smith rose up and filled the door, as forbidding as a lion.

Noggle did not stand to question any phase of the situation at all. He turned and ran, with a cold, gurgling noise in his throat of absolute fright. Smith dashed after him, commanding him in his hoarse, whisky-burned voice to stop and begin a reckoning.

There was but one thought in Noggle's mind, and that was the sanctuary of the hotel. Toward that refuge he sped, cutting the ground in great scissors leaps, old Zeb Smith close after him, his wild hair flying, his wild eyes glaring, his great mustache blowing back to his ears. Away through the business block they went, people giving ground to them, Noggle holding the middle of the sidewalk, that water-gurgle of cold terror still in his throat; after him followed Smith, the one thought of his thoughts being that his last chance must not be allowed to slip his hand.

They passed the city marshal in front of Jud Springer's new joint, but they were going faster than any city marshal in this world ever could hope to move of his own effort, driven by his own physical machinery. He saw the uselessness of pursuit, and let them run unchallenged.