Bucks, when he reported to Baxter, the train despatcher, found new orders waiting for him. He was directed to take charge of the station at Goose Creek. The train did not leave till night, and Bucks took advantage of the interval to go uptown to make some necessary purchases of linen and clothing. On his way back to the station, with his package under his arm, he saw, on the edge of the broad sidewalk, Harvey Levake. Levake was standing near a wooden-Indian cigar-store sign, looking directly at Bucks as the latter walked toward him. The operator, nodding as he came up, asked Levake, without parley, whether he would give him the money for the express charges on the cartridges.
If Bucks had exploded a keg of powder on the sidewalk there could not have been a greater change in the outlaw’s manner. He stared at Bucks with contempt enough to pierce the feelings of the wooden Indian beside which he stood.
“What’s that?” he demanded, throwing his head menacingly forward.
Bucks repeated his request, but so mildly that Levake took additional umbrage at his diffidence.
“See here,” he muttered in a voice beginning like a distant roll of thunder and gathering force and volume as he continued, “don’t insult me.”
Bucks ventured to urge that he intended no insult.
“Don’t insult me!” bellowed Levake in violent tones.
Again Bucks attempted to protest. It was useless. Levake insisted with increasing wrath upon hugging the insult to himself, while Bucks struggled manfully to get it away from him. And as Levake’s loud words did not attract as much attention up and down the street as he sought, he 129 stamped about on the sidewalk. Bucks’s efforts to pacify him made matters momentarily worse.
Meantime a crowd such as Levake desired had gathered and Bucks found himself a target for the outlaw’s continued abuse, with nobody to take his part. Moreover, the expressions on the faces about him now made him realize his peril quite as much as anything in Levake’s words. It was becoming painfully evident that the onlookers were merely waiting to see Levake shoot him down.