The big man’s face had become poisonously bloated. The girl’s defiance seemed to have enraged him.
“Hell!” he said venomously. “You’re talking damn brave!” He leaned closer to her. “And you think you’d be disgraced if folks knowed you was a friend of mine?” He laughed harshly. “Most folks are tickled to be known as my friend. But I’m telling you this: If I ain’t a friend I’m an enemy, and you’re doing as I say or I’m making things mighty unpleasant for you and your poor, ‘afflicted’ brother!”
The young man saw the girl’s hands clench, saw her face grow slowly pale. Twice now had the big man taunted her about her brother, and plainly his words had hurt her. Words trembled on her lips but refused to come. But for an instant she forced her eyes to meet those of the man and then they suddenly filled with tears. She took a backward step, her shoulders drooping. The big man followed her, gloating over her. Again the young man’s thoughts went to the lion and the mouse.
“Hurts, does it?” said the big man, brutally. “Well, you’ve brought it on yourself, being such a damn prude!”
He reached out and grasped her by the shoulder. She shrank back, struggling with him, trying to grasp the butt of an ivory-handled revolver that swung at her right hip. The big man pinned her arms and the effort was futile.
And then retribution–like an avalanche–struck the big man. He heard the movement, sensed the danger, and flung his right hand toward his pistol butt. There was a silent struggle; a shot, one of the young man’s arms swung out–flail like–the clenched hand landing with a crash. The big man went down like a falling tree–prone to the ground, his revolver flying ten feet distant, a little blue-white smoke curling lazily upward out of its muzzle. The big man was raised again–bodily–and hurled down again. He lay face upward in the white sunlight–a mass of bruised and bleeding flesh.
The young man’s anger had come and gone. He stood over the big man, looking down at him, his white teeth gleaming through his slightly parted lips.
“I think that will do for you,” he said in an even, passionless voice.
For an instant there was a tense silence. The young man turned and looked at the girl, who was regarding him with surprised and bewildered eyes.
The young man smiled mirthlessly. “I think I waited rather too long. But he won’t bother you again–at least for a few minutes.”