"My horse, a roan, is tied just under this window. Nothing on this range can touch him! I'll hinder them all I can. Good luck to you!"
Over the man's face swept a great wonder. He tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat; he dropped his eyes and gripped Ken's hand hard.
"If I make it I'll live straight hereafter!" he mumbled, thankfully. There is no man so brave but what chills on the threshold of the Valley of the Shadow!
As Douglass turned laughingly to reply to some witticism of Ballard's concerning "bloated cattle kings" and their liquorous obligations to the common community, Coogan put his hands behind his back and with head bowed as in deep meditation paced slowly toward the window. The Mexican sheriff, resolutely interposed between him and the opening, drew his revolver and curtly said: "Pardon! Señor Coogan, I would have speech with you. I have here a warrant—"
He got no farther, having committed the fatal error of letting his man get too close. With a leap like that of a charging tiger, the gambler was upon him, one hand catching the wrist below the weapon, the other falling with frightful force upon the olive temple. Under the impact of their combined weight the flimsy window gave way like blotting paper and both men were precipitated on the ground outside. With a pretense of going to the sheriff's aid Douglass managed to trip up the marshall, whose quickly-drawn weapon was harmlessly discharged in the floor, and as the others stumbled and fell over his prostrate body Douglass managed to get himself somehow wedged in the window, thus effectually preventing any use of firearms.
As he struggled with exaggerated strenuosity to free himself from the entangled debris, he saw Coogan gain his feet and run swiftly towards the tethered horse; he saw the halter rope severed with one deft slash of the bowie and the foot placed hastily in the stirrup. But the triumphant vault into the saddle was never made; the animal, alarmed at this summary and unusual method of release, was shying away from the man who was trying in his frenzied haste to mount on the wrong side. As Coogan hopped about with muttered oaths, trying to secure an effectual footing, a dark, slender figure seemed to rise out of the ground at his side. Douglass caught the blue gleam of polished steel in the moonlight just above Coogan's neck, heard the soft thud of a well-driven blow; he gave a great cry of warning but it fell upon unheeding ears. The man, releasing his hold upon the horse, staggered blindly about, thrusting savagely at random, a queer bubbling cry welling from his lips. Again and again as the stricken giant reeled tottering about, came that snake-like glide and merciless thrust until finally, his veins drained of their vital flood, Coogan fell on his face in the crimsoned snow.
And then above the rush of hurrying feet, above the cries of blasphemous wonder and alarm as the Palace vomited out its raucous filth, there arose a cackling horror that Douglass would never forget as long as he lived, the vacuous gibbering of Dolores Ysobel de Tejada, kissing her blood-stained cuchilla and screaming weird endearments to two dead men in Jalisco.
Don Luis Garcia, a little giddy and tremulous from the effects of that awful blow, wept remorsefully on the neck of McVey, who promptly suggested vinous consolation. "Ay de mi!" he wailed, "why deed I heem not keel so when that I the chance haddest! Now there will not the hangin' be, and Señorita de Tejada—Ah, pobre nina! She is what you call heem 'off-the-nut.' It is to weep—she of the ver' firs' familee was, and now—Es muy lastima! Eet iss too damn bad!"
Red assented dolorously. "An' Matlock got away, too! Señor, it are shore hell!" Then, remembering, he turned sharply aside so that the other could not see the dull flush on his cheek as Conscience slapped him in the face.
By the advice of Mr. Brewster, the lawyer, Douglass and McVey returned to the jail and reincarcerated themselves therein. The entrapped Mexicans were released with a series of warnings, so effectively phrased by the Lazy K cowpuncher in charge of them, coupled by a few emphasizing kicks impartially administered by him to each by way of self-consolation for his having missed all the fun, that they took their permanent departure for parts unknown without standing on the order of their going. The turnkey, for obvious reasons, was only too glad to keep his own counsel.