"Between you and me," he said calmly enough, "I took what I heard with a grain of salt. There's something about Nick that ain't common, no matter what they say. Besides, they's some men that nobody but a fool would stand up to. It ain't hardly a shame for a man to back down from 'em."
He pointed this remark with a nod to Donnegan.
"I'll give you a bit of free information," said the little man, with his weary eyes lighted a little. "There's no man on the face of the earth who could make Lord Nick back down."
Once more Joe Rix was shocked to the verge of gaping, but again he exercised a power of marvelous self control "About that," he remarked as pointedly as before, "I got my doubts. Because there's some things that any gent with sense will always clear away from. Maybe not one man—but say a bunch of all standin' together."
Donnegan leaned back in his chair and waited. Both of his hands remained drooping from the edge of the table, and the tired eyes drifted slowly across the face of Joe Rix.
It was obviously not the aftereffects of liquor. The astonishing possibility occurred to Joe Rix that this seemed to be a man with a broken spirit and a great sorrow. He blinked that absurdity away.
"Coming to cases," he went on, "there's yourself, Mr. Donnegan. Now, you're the sort of a man that don't sidestep nobody. Too proud to do it. But even you, I guess, would step careful if there was a whole bunch agin' you."
"No doubt," remarked Donnegan.
"I don't mean any ordinary bunch," explained Joe Rix, "but a lot of hard fellows. Gents that handle their guns like they was born with a holster on the hip."
"Fellows like Nick's crowd," suggested Donnegan quietly.