Then with a scornful laugh the figure stepped forward, bending lithely from the waist, with two steel-steady hands gripping two automatic pistols at its front.
"War you boys a-sarchin' fer me?" demanded Bear Cat and the trailing voices, that had been drunkenly essaying close harmony, broke off mid-verse. "Stay right whar ye're at, every mother's son of ye!" came the sharp injunction. "The man thet stirs air a dead man. This hain't no play-party thet I've done come ter."
They sat suddenly silent, abruptly surly and helpless; all save one. George Kelly was still armed, and sitting somewhat apart. Beseechingly his companions sought by covert glance to signal him that he should avail himself of his armed advantage while they continued to distract the newcomer's attention.
Bear Cat's pistols broke out and two treasured jugs were shattered.
"Jim Towers," came the raspingly dictatorial order, "when ye goes back ter ther Quarterhouse ye kin tell Kinnard Towers thet Bear Cat Stacy hain't ter be captured by no litter of drunkards. Tell him he mout es well hire sober murderers or else quit."
As Towers sat glowering and silent, Stacy's voice continued in its stinging contempt.
"You damned murder hirelings, does ye think thet I'm ter be tuck prisoner by sneakin' weasels like you?"
George Kelly had sat silent. Now he rose to his feet, and Stacy ordered curtly, "Lay down thet gun, George. Ye're ther only man I'm astonished ter see hyar. I 'lowed ye war better then a hired assassin."
From someone came thick-tongued exhortation, "Git him, Kelly, you've got a gun. Git ther damn' parson."
In the momentary centering of Bear Cat's attention upon George, some one slipped with a cat-like furtiveness of motion back into the thicker darkness—toward the cached rifles.