“You would kill me just as quick if you had, Levake. What are you hesitating about? If you are going to shoot, shoot.”
Throwing back his right arm, and fingering the trigger of his revolver as a panther lashes his tail before springing, Levake stepped back and to one side. As he did so, with the fearless surgeon still facing him, a man stepped from behind the screen door of the deserted restaurant. It was Bob Scott.
The old and deadly feud between the Indian and the outlaw brought them now, for the first time in months, face to face. In spite of his iron nerve Levake started. Scott, slightly stooped and wearing the familiar slouch hat and shabby coat in which he was always seen, regarded his enemy with a smile.
So sudden was his appearance that Levake could not for an instant control himself. If there was a man in the whole mountain country that Levake could be said to be afraid of, it was the mild-mannered, mild-spoken Indian scout. Where Scott had come from, how he had got through the pickets posted by Levake himself––these questions, for which he could find no answer, disquieted the murderer.
Arnold, reprieved from death as by a miracle, stood like a statue. Levake, with his hand on his pistol, had halted, petrified, at the sight of Scott.
The latter, eying the murderer with an expression that might have been mistaken for friendly, had not Levake known there could be no friendship among decent men for him, broke the silence: “Levake, I have a warrant for you.”
The words seemed to shake the spell from the outlaw’s nerves. He answered with his usual coolness: “You’ve waited a good while to serve it.”
“I’ve been a little busy for a few days, Levake,” returned Scott, with the same even tone. “I kind of lost track of you.” But his words again disconcerted Levake. The few men who now watched the scene and knew what was coming stood breathless.