"Get out of here!" he bellowed hoarsely. "Get out, curse you, d'ye hear! Get out!"
There were men in that little crowd, men besides the three or four women, Mrs. MacAloon amongst them; men not reckoned overfaint of spirit in Big Cloud by those who knew, but they knew Flannagan, and they went—went, half carrying, half dragging the ringmaster, oiled and perfumed now in a fashion grimly different than before.
"Get out!" roared Flannagan again to hurry them, and, as the last one disappeared, he whirled on Daisy. "And you, too!" he snarled. "Get out!"
Terrified, shaken by the scene as she was, his words, their implication, their injustice, whipped her into scorn and anger. White-lipped, she stared at him for an instant.
"You dare," she burst out, "you dare to——"
"Get out!" Flannagan's voice in his passion was a thick, stumbling, guttural whisper. "Get out! Go back to your circus—go where you like! Get out!" His hand dove into his pocket, and its contents, bills and coins, what there was of them, he flung upon the table. "Get out—as far as all I've got will take you!"
Daisy MacQueen was proud—perhaps, though, not above the pride of other women. The blood was hot in her cheeks; her big, brown eyes had a light in them near to that light with which she had faced Ferraringi but a short time before; her breath came in short, hard, little gasps. For a full minute she did not speak—and then the words came cold as death.
"Some day—some day, Michael Flannagan, you'll get what you deserve."
"That's what I'm gettin' now—what I deserve," he flung back; then, halting in the doorway: "You understand, eh? Get out! I'm lettin' you down easy. Get out of Big Cloud! Get out before I'm back. Number Fifteen 'll be in in an hour—you'd better take her."
Flannagan stepped out on the street. A curious little group had collected two houses down in front of Mrs. MacAloon's. Flannagan glanced at them, muttered a curse; and then, head down between his shoulders, clenched fists rammed in his pockets, he headed in the other direction toward Main Street. Five minutes later, he pushed the swinging doors of the Blazing Star open, and walked down the length of the room to where Pete MacGuire, the proprietor, lounged across the bar.