King took a half dozen steps towards McCartney and thrust his face close. Conversation had ceased and a deathly silence had come over the place. Every man there had looked forward to the time when these two should meet and settle accounts. The fact that McCartney was clearly under the influence of liquor gave some cause for regret but, on the other hand, they felt that if McCartney was going to play the game at all it was strictly his own affair, and it was his business to come prepared for a show-down whenever and wherever the occasion arose.
"You don't give me a chance," King said very slowly and in a tone of genuine regret. "You talk to me like that because you're drunk. But you won't talk like that where I am, even if you are drunk. Some day you'll be sober, and I'm going to ask you about this. Then you'll have to eat what you said. But I'm going to wait. Just now I'm going to throw you out."
Even as he spoke, he stepped deliberately towards McCartney, and the latter lurched heavily to meet him, aiming a blow with his huge fist as he came. The blow was badly directed and King parried it without effort. The next moment he had McCartney round the waist and had lifted him bodily from the floor.
"Open the door, Gabe," he ordered, and as Gabe swung the door open King half carried, half pushed his struggling burden into the open doorway and with a final effort, into which he put all his strength, he lifted the drunken foreman and threw him out into the darkness, where he stumbled and fell clumsily to the ground.
King stood for a moment and watched him while he scrambled awkwardly to his feet and stood cursing. He would have come back at King almost immediately had it not been for a couple of the men who edged their way out quickly past King and led McCartney away in the darkness to his own quarters, cursing and shouting threats as he went.
Then King turned and looked behind him at the men.
"I guess we'll be going on back, Gabe," he said quietly. "There won't be any more trouble to-night."
Together the two men left the bunkhouse and started off down the trail towards the store.
When they had reached the door King stopped and looked once round the camp, where it lay in pitch darkness.
"Go on in, Gabe," he said to the old man. "I'm going to take a walk over to the cabin and see that everything is all right."