They walked between swelling crowds, always separated by the width of the street into opposing forces, but from both groups the glances that fell upon father and son were glances of confidence and admiration. If there was any man living whose voice could penetrate, with a message of harmony, their armored hatreds, that man was McAllister Falkins. But he had won and held his influence by his total aloofness of attitude. Now, he was to take a central and pivotal position, and, if he failed, his prestige would go down to wreck with his effort, and the work of a lifetime would collapse like a pin-pricked balloon.
No women or children were to be seen on the streets. Doors were closed, and the more public hitching-racks were empty. Horses and mules had been relegated to back streets and sheltered places. But as yet from the gathering storm-cloud had broken no rumble of thunder and no flash of lightning. There was only a constant tightening of nerves to the point where they must be released or snap.
To the eyes of Henry Falkins, the answer was hideously clear. They meant to hear his father patiently as a matter of respect; but they had no intention of being influenced by what he said. When he reached his conclusion, the gathered tempest would break; and, when it had subsided, another bloody chapter would have been added to the history of these mud-rutted and twisting streets. It could not be undone.
Meanwhile, even the complimentary restraint could not last, if a single fanatic broke from the order of the ranks.
The hours crawled with heavy suspense toward noon. Crowds that had been attenuated strings along the sidewalks began drawing in and concentrating at the court-house square. On the right, the Spooners gathered around the figures of the two returned defendants, while on the left the Falkinses drew about a raw-boned young giant whose baleful eyes never left the faces of Red Newton and Buddy Spooner. This was "Young Jake," itching to be about his work of reprisal and impatient of delay. Stragglers drifted in until only the brick path and a few feet of hard-tramped earth at its margin separated the two armies. Newt Spooner was going up and down the street sorely perplexed, because he had been unable to locate the Deacon and make the pretended peace-pact, which was a prerequisite to his own arrangements. Wherever he went, a half-dozen men went also. They were not always the same men, but they were always the same in number, and he knew that he was being watched by an escort of the Deacon's selection, and that until he satisfied that leader, he could not shake them off.
Then he saw McAllister and Henry Falkins, coming toward the court-house. The sun was directly overhead now, and the shadows were short. Newt tightened his grip on his rifle, and, as he did so, the unconfessed body-guard closed around him and worried him with casual conversation. The boy ground his teeth and waited.
Then, as McAllister and Henry Falkins turned into the court-house yard, something happened.
Young Jake Falerin had made his way through his own crowd to the foot of the court-house steps, as befitted the claimant to feud leadership. From that place of vantage he could hear what was said and give his orders when the speech ended. Red Newton and Buddy Spooner had acted on a similar impulse from their side of the path, and as the recently orphaned youth raised his eyes, to find them gazing into those of his principal enemies, his promise to wait became a forgotten thing.
With an oath, his hand swept under his coat, and came out armed. Red Newton had been equally swift, and for an instant the two men stood facing each other with leveled pistols.
At that cue, the clicking of scores of rifle-hammers ran along the waiting lines. Yet, for a second or two, there followed no other sound. The knowledge that to draw a trigger indubitably meant to fall oneself in the same breath, was holding them in check for an undecided breathing space. If a gun cracked now, it meant wholesale carnage along those ranks. Both lines knew it—and hesitated.