"Now I'll tell you. You manhunting cur, I'm going to send you to hell with your sins on your head. I'm going to kill you, Larrimer!"
It was so unexpected, so totally startling, that Larrimer blinked, raised his head, and laughed.
But the son of Black Jack tore away all thought of laughter.
"Larrimer, I'm Terry Hollis. Get your gun!"
The wide mouth of Larrimer writhed silently from mirth to astonishment, and then sinister rage. And though he was in the shadow against the door, Terry saw the slow gleam in the face of the tall man—then his hand whipped for the gun. It came cleanly out. There was no flap to his holster, and the sight had been filed away to give more oiled and perfect freedom to the draw. Years of patient practice had taught his muscles to reflex in this one motion with a speed that baffled the eye. Fast as light that draw seemed to those who watched, and the draw of Terry Hollis appeared to hang in midair. His hand wavered, then clutched suddenly, and they saw a flash of metal, not the actual motion of drawing the gun. Just that gleam of the barrel at his hip, hardly clear of the holster, and then in the dimness of the big room a spurt of flame and the boom of the gun.
There was a clangor of metal at the farthest end of the room. Larrimer's gun had rattled on the boards, unfired. He tossed up his great gaunt arms as though he were appealing for help, leaped into the air, and fell heavily, with a force that vibrated the floor where Terry stood.
There was one heartbeat of silence.
Then Terry shoved the gun slowly back into his holster and walked to the body of Larrimer.
To these things Bill, the storekeeper, and Jack Baldwin, the rancher, afterward swore. That young Black Jack leaned a little over the corpse and then straightened and touched the fallen hand with the toe of his boot. Then he turned upon them a perfectly calm, unemotional look.
"I seem to have been elected to do the scavenger work in this town," he said. "But I'm going to leave it to you gentlemen to take the carrion away. Shorty, I'm going back to the house. Are you ready to ride that way?"