“I'm carrying the mail,” David repeated, his hand on the bag. “You've got no call on this or on me.”
He added the last with tremendous effort. It seemed unspeakable that he should be there, the Hatburns before him, and merely depart.
“What do you think of putting the stage under a soft little strawberry like that?” the other inquired.
For answer there was a stunning report, a stinging odor of saltpeter; and David felt a sharp burning on his shoulder, followed by a slow warmish wet, spreading.
“I didn't go to do just that there!” the Hatburn who had fired explained. “I wanted to clip his ear, but he twitched like.”
David picked up the mail bag and took a step backward in the direction he had come. The other moved between him and the door.
“If you get out,” he said, “it'll be through the hog-wash.”
David placed the bag on the floor, stirred by a sudden realization—he had charge of the stage, official responsibility for the mail. He was no longer a private individual; what his mother had commanded, entreated, had no force here and now. The Hatburns were unlawfully detaining him.
As this swept over him, a smile lighted his fresh young cheeks, his frank mouth, his eyes like innocent flowers. Hatburn shot again; this time the bullet flicked at David's old felt hat. With his smile lingering he smoothly leveled the revolver from his pocket and shot the mocking figure in the exact center of the pocket patched on his left breast.
David wheeled instantly, before the other Hatburn running for him, and stopped him with a bullet as remorselessly placed as the first. The two men on the floor stiffened grotesquely and the idiot crouched in a corner, whimpering.