No man felt it incumbent upon him to reply to this and Dunlavey watched them for an instant, sneering, his eyes glittering menacingly. Then he suddenly turned, seized the poster, savagely tore it into pieces, hurled the pieces to the floor, and stamped upon them. Then he turned again to the silent crowd, his face inflamed, his voice snapping with a bitter, venomous sarcasm.
“Scared!” he said. “Scared out clean–like a bunch of coyotes runnin’ from the daylight!” He made a strange sound with his lips, expressing his unutterable contempt for men so weakly constituted.
“Quit!” he grated. “Quit clean because a tenderfoot comes out here and tries to run things! So long as things come your way you’re willing to stick it out, but when things go the other way–Ugh!”
He turned abruptly, strode out through the door, mounted his pony, and rode rapidly down the street. Several of the men, who went to the door after his departure, saw him riding furiously toward the Circle Cross.
Then one of his former friends laughed harshly–sarcastically. “I reckon that there tenderfoot is botherin’ Big Bill a whole lot,” he said as he turned to the bar.
It had been a busy day for Hollis. His hand had been shaken so much that it pained him. The day had been a rather warm one for the season and so when late in the afternoon Norton rode into town, “To see the excitement,” he told Hollis, the latter determined to make the return trip to the Circle Bar in the evening. Therefore, after a short conference with Judge Graney and Allen–and a frugal, though wholesome supper in the Judge’s rooms back of the court house–which Allen cooked–he and Norton rode out upon the Coyote trail and jogged quietly toward the Circle Bar.
There was a good moon; the air was invigorating, though slightly chill, and the trail lay clear and distinct before them, hard after the rain, ideal for riding.
Many times during the first half hour of the ride Norton looked furtively at his chief. Certain things that Mrs. Norton had told him held a prominent place in his thoughts, and mingling with these thoughts was the recollection of a conversation that he had held with Hollis one day when both of them had been riding this same trail and Hollis had stopped off at the Hazelton cabin. Many times Norton smiled. He would have liked to refer to that conversation, but hesitated for fear of seeming to meddle with that which did not concern him. He remembered the days of his own courtship–how jealously he had guarded his secret.
But the longer his thoughts dwelt upon the incident that had been related to him by Mrs. Norton the harder it became to keep silent. But he managed to repress his feelings for the first half hour and then, moved by an internal mirth that simply would not be held in check longer, he cackled aloud.