"You said you knowed Waffles," continued Clayton loudly. "Well, he 's another of you old-time cowmen! He killed MacKay—murdered him—because we was usin' a hill range a day's ride from his own grass! He had twenty men like hisself to back him up. If we 'd been as many as them, they would n't 'a' tried it—an' you know it!"
"I don't know anything of th' kind, but I do know—" began Youbet; but Schultz interrupted him with a remark intended to contain humor.
"Ven you say you doand know anyt'ing, you know somedings; ven you know dot you doand know noddings, den you know somedings. Und das iss so—yah."
"Who th' devil told you to stick yore Dutch mouth—" retorted Youbet; but Clayton cut him short.
"So yo 're a old-timer, hey?" cried the sheepman. "Well, by God, yore old-time friend Waffles is a coward, a murderer, an'—"
"Yo're a liar!" rang out the vibrant voice of the cowman
"Yo 're a liar!" rang out the vibrant voice of the cowman, his gun out and leveled in a flash. The seven had moved forward as one man, actuated by the same impulse; and their hands were moving toward their guns when the crashes of Youbet's weapon reverberated in the small room, the acrid smoke swirling around him as though to shield him from the result of his folly—a result which he had weighed and then ignored.
Clayton dropped, with his mouth still open. Towne's gun chocked back in the scabbard as its owner stumbled blindly over a chair and went down, never to rise. Schultz fired once, and fell back across the table.
The three shots had followed one another with incredible quickness; and the seven, not believing that one man would dare attack so many, had not expected his play. Before the stunned sheepmen could begin firing, three were dead.