“You’ll be smiling sweetly and holding up your hands as high as you can get them,” came the cool retort; “otherwise I might take you for an enlarged whiskey bottle and make a mistake in my shooting. Stop!” he cried, as the bartender reached under the bar.
“It’s time to interfere,” said the stranger by Clay’s side.
CHAPTER VIII
AN EXCITING TIME
The low ceilinged room was filled with roughly dressed miners and a few women gaudily attired. Alex’s voice had rang out so seriously and deadly that a wide lane had opened up between him and the bartender. Clay and Ike, with the stranger in the lead, pushed forward to where Teddy, a leering grin on his face, was waiting for another round of beer. The bartender was striving to secure his long-barreled pistol, which lay on a shelf underneath the bar, but Alex was on the watch and the pinging of the automatic sent a steel-nosed bullet crashing through the bar close to the bartender’s hands, which he promptly elevated on high. “Now for your insults and threats and the way you have abused Teddy,” Alex cried, anger taking full possession of him. He sent two bullets in the mirror which cracked it from top to bottom, then he began to shoot slowly and carefully, at the four tiers of bottles behind the bar. Each bullet brought forth the tinkling sound of splintered glass and the gushing forth of escaping liquor. The bartender’s face grew paler with each sound of breaking glass, for liquor was liquid gold at Nome.
But this state of things could not last. The shots brought the reserve force of bartenders and bouncers from other parts of the building, some pulling out their long-barreled revolvers as they ran to their chief’s assistance. The first appeared behind the bar just as the stranger, with the boys at his side, struggled into the open lane that ran from Alex to the bar. Alex had emptied his pistol and was calmly reloading it with deliberate care, although he could not but realize the peril in which he stood. His face brightened as he saw his two friends.
“Get out while you’ve got the chance,” he shouted.
But Clay only smiled as he whipped out his automatic and leveled it at the newcomer behind the bar, who was cocking a heavy 44 Colts.
“Hold on a minute, you gunmen,” rang out the stranger’s voice, cool and crisp. The constantly augmented group of bartenders and bouncers hesitated for a moment at the determined tones of authority, and Alex finished his reloading.
“I reckon you all know me,” went on the cool drawling voice, “if some of you don’t know me, I’m the Yukon Kid an’ you may have heard the name before.” A murmur swept over the crowd.