Levake, moistening his dry lips, spoke carefully: “I don’t want any trouble with you here,” he said. “When this town fight is over, bring your warrant around and I’ll talk to you.”
“No,” returned Scott, undisturbed, “I might 297 lose track of you again. You can come right along with me, Levake.”
With incredible quickness the outlaw, half-turning to cover Scott, fired. The cat-like agility of the Indian answered the move in the instant it was made. Scott was, in fact, the first scout from whom mountain men learned to fire a revolver without aiming it and it was not without reason that Levake sought no encounter with him. For Scott to draw and fire was but one movement, and hating Levake as a monster, the Indian had long been ready to meet him as he met him now, when he should be forced to face him fairly.
A fusillade of shots rang down the street. The air between the two men, feinting like boxers in their deadly duel, filled with whitish smoke. Arnold, stunned by the suddenness of the encounter, jumped out of range. In the next moment he saw Levake sink to the sidewalk. Scott, springing upon him like a cat, knelt with one hand already on his throat; with the other he wrung a second revolver from Levake’s hand. The surgeon ran to the two men.
Levake, panting, lay desperately wounded, as Scott slowly released his grip upon him. The Indian rose as the surgeon approached, but Levake, his eyes wide open, lay still.
“You are wounded, Bob,” cried Arnold, tearing the stained sleeve of Scott’s coat from his shoulder. The scout shook his head.
“We’re in danger here,” he replied, glancing hurriedly up the street. “We must get this fellow away.”
The two picked the wounded man from the ground and started quickly down street with him. The shooting, now so frequent all over the town, had attracted little attention outside the few that had witnessed the swift duel, and the two railroad men made good progress with their burden before the alarm was spread. But the surgeon saw that the strain was telling on Scott, whose shoulder was bleeding freely. He had even ordered his companion to drop his burden and run, when he heard a shout and saw Bill Dancing running across from the barricade to their aid.