He went out, slamming the door behind him. Twenty minutes later, Barry emerged from the "shanty" and mounted his sleek, restless thoroughbred. Having recovered, for purposes of deception, his lordly, cock-o'-the-walk attitude toward the world, he rode off jauntily in the direction of the town, according Trentman the scant courtesy of a careless wave of the hand at parting. He had counted his money, examined the borrowed pistols, and at the last moment had hurriedly dashed off a brief letter to Kenneth Gwynne, to be posted the following day by the avid though obliging Mr. Trentman.
Stifling his rancour and coercing his vanity at the same time, he cantered boldly past the Tavern, bitterly aware of the protracted look of amazement that interrupted the conversation of some of the most influential citizens of the place as at least a score of eyes fell upon his battered visage. Pride and rage got the better of him. He whirled Fancy about with a savage jerk and rode back to the group.
"Take a good look, gentlemen," he snapped out, his eyes gleaming for all the world like two thin little slivers of red-hot iron. "The coward who hit me before I had a chance to defend myself has just denied me the satisfaction of a duel. I sent him a challenge to fight it out with pistols day after to-morrow morning. He is afraid to meet me. The challenge still stands. If you should see Mr. Gwynne, gentlemen, between now and Friday morning, do me the favour to say to him that I will be the happiest man on earth if he can muster up sufficient courage to change his mind. Good day, gentlemen."
With this vainglorious though vicarious challenge to an absent enemy, he touched the gad to Fancy's flank and rode away, his head erect, his back as stiff as a ramrod, leaving behind him a staring group whose astonishment did not give way to levity until he was nearing the corner of the square. He cursed softly under his breath at the sound of the first guffaw; he subdued with difficulty a wild, reckless impulse to turn in the saddle and send a shot or two at them. But this was no time for folly,—no time to lose his head.
Out of the corner of his eye he took in the jail and the group of citizens on the court house steps. Something seemed to tell him that these men were saying, "There he goes,—stop him! He's getting away!" They were looking at him; of that he was subtly conscious, although he managed to keep his eyes set straight ahead. Only the most determined effort of the will kept him from suddenly putting spur to the mare. Afterwards he complimented himself on his remarkable self-control, and laughed as he likened his present alarm to that of a boy passing a graveyard at night. Nevertheless, he was now filled with an acute, very real sense of anxiety and apprehension; every nerve was on edge.
It was all very well for Jack Trentman to say that this was the safest, most sensible way to go about it, but had Jack ever been through it himself? At any moment Martin Hawk might catch a glimpse of him through the barred window of the jail and let out a shout of warning; at any moment the sheriff himself might dash out of the court house with a warrant in his hand,—and then what? He had the chill, uneasy feeling that they would be piling out after him before he could reach the corner of the friendly thickets at the lower end of the street.
A pressing weight seemed to slide off his shoulders and neck as Fancy swung smartly around the bend into the narrow wagon-road that stretched its aimless way through the scrubby bottom-lands and over the ridge to the open sweep of the plains beyond. Presently he urged the mare to a rhythmic lope, and all the while his ears were alert for the thud of galloping horses behind. It was not until he reached the table-land to the south that he drove the rowels into the flanks of the swift four-year-old and leaned forward in the saddle to meet the rush of the wind. Full well he knew that given the start of an hour no horse in the county could catch his darling Fancy!
And so it was that Barry Lapelle rode out of the town of Lafayette, never to return again.