"Ah, so I was informed. They seem quiet enough here."
"Yes, Sandy won't stand any disturbance. He's away to-night but Slick's got his orders. Know Sandy?"
"No. Is he the proprietor?"
"That's him: Sandy McQueen, proprietor, boss, head-bouncer, the only—"
"I say, what's the row?"
Tex's feet hit the floor with a bang. Gottleib Gerken was shaking his fist in Dave's face, Dave sitting very still, intently watchful. "Du verdammter Schuft!" shouted Gerken, "Mein Meister verrathen, was!" He sent the table flying, with a violent thrust of his foot: "I show you!"
Watchful as he was, Dave did not anticipate what was coming. As the table toppled over he sprang to his feet, the forward thrust of his head in this action moving in contrary direction to the hurtling fist of Gottleib, which stopped very suddenly against his nose. Dave staggered backward, stumbled over his chair and went crashing to the floor, where he lay for an instant dazed.
"By Jove! that was a facer," cried the appreciative Whitby. The others were ominously quiet.
The next moment Dave was on his feet, white with murderous rage. There was more than fallen dignity to revenge: Gottleib knew too much. Without the least hesitation his gun slanted and the roar of the discharge was echoed by Gottleib's plunging fall. A frenzied scream, feminine in shrillness, rang through the room. Dave's gun dropped from his hand and he sank to the floor; a whiskey bottle, flying the length of the room, had struck him on the head, and Boomerang, struggling with maniacal fury in the arms of several men, strove to follow his missile. At the other end of the bar the numbed Pickles suddenly came to life and leaped to the floor. Caught and stopped in his frantic rush across the room he kicked and struck at his captor. "Lemme go!" he shrieked, "lemme go! I 'll kill the —— ——" The men holding Boomerang ran him to the open hall door and gave him forcible exit and the stern command to "Git! an' keep a-goin'."
A sullen murmur swelling to low growls of anger formed an undertone to the boy's hysterical cries, as the men looked on at Tex's efforts to revive the stunned culprit. "Lynch him!" growled a voice. "Lynch him!" echoed over the room. "Lynch him!" shouted a dozen men, and Tex ceased his efforts and came on guard barely in time to stop a concerted rush. Straddling the recumbent figure, his blazing eyes shocked the crowd to a stand-still. With a motion quicker than a striking rattler a gun in either hand threatened the waverers. "Dutchy 's got a gun," he rebuked them; "he was a-reachin' for it when he dropped."