"I'll tell a hand, we'll kill him! Anyone that starts gun-play in Timber City's got to go on through with it."
"You're cowards!" exclaimed the girl. "How many of you are there against one man?"
"That don't make no difference. We got the law on our side, an' he ain't on his'n. He come in here a-huntin' trouble—an' he got it. An' he'll pay his fine, an' settle up with Pete Barras, or we'll plant him—one."
Alice thrust the flowers into the bosom of her soft shirt and regarded the man coldly: "If all of you brave gun-fighters are afraid to go in there and get him, I'll go. I'm not afraid."
Ike Stork warned her: "You better keep out of it, mom. He's lickered up an' liable to shoot sudden."
"I'm not afraid," repeated the girl.
Hod Blake shrugged: "Go ahead if you want to. Tell him we'll git him, sure, if he don't give himself up. An' s'pose you git shot, fer yer trouble, you got any folks to notify?"
Alice glanced at him coldly: "My husband is up at Mr. Cameron's with Mr. Colston, you might mention it to him, if you think of it," she answered scornfully. "Get me a light."
Match in one hand, candle in the other, the girl advanced to the front of the saloon, while the crowd remained at a respectful distance. The door of the building stood open, but the interior was screened from the street by a heavy partition of rough planking around which one must pass to gain access to the bar. At the doorway the girl paused and her figure leaped sharply into view in the bright flare of the match. The flame dimmed as she held it to the wick of the candle, then brightened as she stood with white face and tight-pressed lips, framed in the black recess of the doorway. For a long time, as tense seconds are measured, she stood wondering at the sudden silence. She knew that the eyes of the crowd were upon her as it waited just beyond the circle of her candlelight—and her shoulders stiffened as she realized that not a man among them would dare stand where she stood with a lighted candle in her hand. She felt no fear, now. It seemed the most natural, the most matter-of-fact thing in the world that she should be standing thus in the doorway of the Red Front saloon, with a crowd of armed men in the darkness behind her, and in the darkness before her—what? What if the man behind that rough plank wall were not Tex—her Tex? What if—? It seemed suddenly as if icy fingers reached up and clutched her heart. She felt her knees tremble, and the candle swayed in her hand until it threw moving shadows on the plank wall. Thoughts of Win crowded her brain. What would Win think of her? What could he think, if the man behind that screen were not Tex, and would shoot the second she came into range? What would everyone think? She was a fool.
"Douse yer light an' crawl back!" She recognized the rough half contemptuous voice of Hod Blake. And the next instant she thought of the roar of guns, the acrid smell of burned powder, and the thin red streaks of flame that had pierced the night like swift arrows of blood. They would kill him. "He's the best man among them all," she sobbed, and closing her eyes, held the candle at arms length before her, and walked slowly toward the black opening at the end of the plank screen.