Curtis’s face paled, even under its ruddy tan, and his eyes blazed. With head up he strode forward. “Jenkins,” he said, without raising his voice, although it shook with a warning tremor, “I advise you to be careful. You may have your opinion about me, as I have mine about you—and you know what that is. But don’t you say that again, nor anything else of the sort!”
Jenkins turned toward him with an ugly sneer. Recollection of former indignities at Conrad’s tongue and hands blazed up in his heart and carried him farther than he had meant to go. With an oath and a vile name he flung his glass in Conrad’s face. In an instant the young man’s arms were around his body. The others crowded in and tried to stop the quarrel.
“Let us alone!” shouted Curtis, pushing his way toward the back room. “Wilder, take his gun, will you? Get mine out of my pocket, too. This won’t be a gun play.”
Tillinghurst took Conrad’s pistol, and Wilder succeeded in getting Jenkins’s revolver, at the cost of a kick on the shin, which he repaid in kind. With Jenkins almost helpless in his grasp, Curtis struggled into the rear room. The others were all crowding after him. He turned back a face still pale and set with anger, although a twinkle of amusement was creeping into his eyes.
“Dan,” he called, “shut that door and keep out the crowd!”
Instantly there were cries of disapproval.
“Fair play!” “You’re bigger than him!” “We want to see it’s on the square!”
Curtis scowled. “If any of you think it won’t be on the square, just wait for me till I get through with him,” he shouted.
The Sheriff slammed the door, and set his bulk against it, saying with smiling cheerfulness: “Well, gentlemen, I reckon Mr. Jenkins won’t get any more than is comin’ to him, and as Sheriff I call on all of you to keep the peace and not interfere.”
Alone in the back room with his prisoner, Conrad dropped into a chair, dragged the other over his knees, face downward, then threw out one sinewy leg and caught under it Jenkins’s two unruly limbs. Still keeping a firm grip with his left arm, he raised his right hand.