He went on with his blackguard inference and when he had ended a laugh went up, a ribald, obscene, barroom laugh. It had reached its height when Tom Beck, whose eyes had been on Hepburn as Webb gave voice to his insult, elbowed the foreman from his way and faced the one who had occasioned that laugh.
There was in his manner a quality which caught attention like nippers.
He stood, forcing Webb to look into his threatening face a quiet instant. Then he spoke:
"That's a lie!"
The bantering smile swept from the other's face and his mouth drew down in a slanting snarl.
"What's a lie?"
"What you said is a lie, Webb, an' you're a liar—"
The smaller man's hand whipped to his holster and Beck, breaking short, closed on him, fingers like steel gripping the ready wrist.
"Don't try that with me, you rat!"
With a steady pull he lifted the resisting hand which gripped the gun away from the man's side while Webb struggled, cursing as he found himself unable to resist that strength.