Latimer was convinced also that Harlan would not attempt to rise. He had Harlan at a disadvantage, and he laughed loudly, sardonically, contemptuously as he stood, his right hand hovering close to his pistol holster, his eyes aflame with hate and passion.
“Keep a-settin’, you buzzard’s whelp!” he sneered; “keep a-settin’! Latimer’s out to git you. You know it—eh? You’ve knowed it right along—pretendin’ not to. ‘Drag’ Harlan—bah! Gunslinger with a record—an’ caught a-settin’. Caught with the goods on, sneakin’ in here, tryin’ to ketch a man unawares.
“Bah! Don’t I know what you’re here for? It’s me! You blowed Dolver apart for killin’ that damned, slick-eyed pardner of yourn—Davey Langan. Do you want to know who sent Langan out? I’m tellin’ you—it was me! Me—me!”
He fairly yelled the last words, and stiffened, holding the fingers of his right hand clawlike, above the butt of the holstered pistol.
And when he saw that Harlan did not move; that he sat there rigid, his eyes unblinking and expressionless; his right hand hanging limply at his side, near the partially extended leg; his left hand resting upon the thigh of the doubled leg—he stepped closer, watching Harlan’s right hand.
For a space—while one might have counted ten—neither man moved a muscle. Something in Harlan’s manner sent into Latimer’s frenzied brain the message that all was not what it seemed—that Harlan was meditating some astonishing action. Ten seconds is not long, as times goes, but during that slight interval the taut nerves of Latimer’s were twanged with a torturing doubt that began to creep over him.
Would Harlan never make that move? That question was dinned insistently into Latimer’s ears. He began to believe that Harlan did not intend to draw.
And then——
“Ah!”
It was Latimer’s lungs that breathed the ejaculation.