"Hold up a minute, for God's sake!" he pleaded hastily. "We've got to give them a show, Harding! The chances are that every man in that commissary believes that M'Graw has the law on his side—and we are not sure that he hasn't. Anyway, they don't know that they are trying to stand off a sheriff's posse!"
Harding's chuckle was sardonic. "You mean that we'd ought to go over yonder and read the riot act to 'em first? That might do back in the country where you came from. But the man that can get into that camp over there with the serving papers now 'd have to be armor-plated, I reckon."
"Just the same, we've got to give them their chance!" Smith insisted doggedly. "We can't stand for any unnecessary bloodshed—I won't stand for it!"
Harding shrugged his heavy shoulders. "One round into that sheet-iron commissary shack'll bring 'em to time—and nothing else will. I hain't got any men to throw away on the dew-dabs and furbelows."
Smith sprang up and held out his hand.
"You have at least one man that you can spare, Mr. Harding," he snapped. "Give me those papers. I'll go over and serve them."
At this the big sheriff promptly lost his temper.
"You blamed fool!" he burst out. "You'd be dog-meat before you could get ten feet away from this ditch!"
"Never mind: give me those papers. I'm not going to stand by quietly and see a lot of men shot down on the chance of a misunderstanding!"
"Take 'em, then!" rasped Harding, meaning nothing more than the calling of a foolish theorist's bluff.