"Three men could 'a' stopped that gun as easy as twenty, and saved more hosses. Who wants to take a little pasear after that gun?"
Several of his men volunteered.
"I only need two," he said, smiling. "I call by guess. Number twenty-six, number thirty-eight, and number three."
The last was his own number.
In the wide hallway and massed on the court-house stairs the mob was calling out to recover the gun. Beyond control of their leaders, crazed with drink and killing, they surged forward, quarreling, and shoved from behind by those above.
"We're ridin'," said the old Ranger.
With a man on each side of him he charged across the square.
Waco, peering from behind a stone column in the entrance, saw that Lorry was one of the riders. Lorry's lips were drawn tight. His face was pale, but his gun arm swung up and down with the regularity of a machine as he threw shot after shot into the black tide that welled from the court-house doorway. A man near Waco pulled an automatic and leveled it. Waco swung his arm and brained the man with an empty whiskey bottle. He threw the bottle at another of his fellows, and, stumbling down the steps, called to Lorry. The three riders paused for an instant as Waco ran forward. The riders had won almost to the gun when Waco stooped and jerked it round and poured a withering volley into the close-packed doorway.
Back in the side street the leader of the cowboys addressed his men.
"We'll leave the horses here," he said. "Tex went after that gun, and I reckon he's got it. We'll clean up afoot."