Thornton counted slowly, with regular intervals between the words. "One," and neither man moved, both sitting in seeming carelessness, their hands behind their heads. "Two," and only their eyes showed that every lax muscle in each body grew taut. "Three," and then they moved, the two men like two pieces of the same machine driven unerringly by the same motive power.
Not the hands alone but the entire bodies, every muscle leaping into action in a swiftness too great, too accurate for it to have been fully appreciated had there been a third man to see. Thornton slipped sideways from his chair, dropping to his knees upon the floor, and his two hands flashed downward. The left hand sped to the opening at the left hip of his chaps, and to the pocket beneath; the right hand into the loose band at his stomach. And the hands seemed not to have disappeared for a fraction of a second when they were flung out in front of him, and two heavy double action revolvers looked squarely into Comstock's smiling face.
Comstock had scarcely seemed to move. He still sat loosely in his chair, its front legs tilted back supported by his heels. But his hands had gone their swift, unerring way to the pockets of his coat, and into the barrels of the revolvers looked the blue steel barrels of two big automatics. And both men knew that, had this been no play, but deadly earnest, there would not have been the tenth of a second between the pistol shots.
"Pretty nearly an even break," laughed Comstock, dropping his guns back into his pockets.
Thornton rose and stood frowning down into the uplifted eyes of his visitor.
"It doesn't take a bullet long to go ten feet," he said a little sternly. "One man doesn't have to get his gun working half an hour before the other fellow." He came around the table and put out his hand. "Shake," he said. "You could have got me. And I guess you're Two-Hand Billy, all right."
Comstock's eyes were bright with frank admiration.
"I don't know so well about getting you," he answered. "I played you to slip out on the other side of your chair. And," with his frank laugh, "I wouldn't care for the job of going out for you, Mr. Thornton."
"Real name, Buck," laughed the cowboy. "And now, let's talk."
"First name, Billy," returned Comstock. "And we'll talk in a minute.
First thing though, there's some mail for you!"