"Then," said Mac Strann, "I got to leave the buryin' to other men what
I'll hire. Me—I've got business on hand. Where did Barry run to?"
"He ain't run," cried Haw-Haw, choking with a strange emotion. "The fool—the damned fool!—is waiting right down here in O'Brien's bar for you to come. He's darin' you to come!"
Mac Strann made no answer. He cast a single glance at the peaceful face of Jerry, and then started for the door. Haw-Haw waited until the door closed; then he wound his arms about his body, writhed in an ecstasy of silent laughter, and followed with long, shambling strides.
CHAPTER XVII
BUCK MAKES HIS GET-AWAY
Straight from the room of the dead man, Fatty Matthews had hurried down to the bar, and there he stepped into the silence and found the battery of eyes all turned upon that calm figure at the end of the room. Upon this man he trotted, breathing hard, and his fat sides jostled up and down as he ran. According to Brownsville, there were only two things that could make Fatty run: a gun or the sight of a drink. But all maxims err. When he reached Barry he struck him on the shoulder with a heavy hand. That is, he struck at the shoulder, but as if the shadow of the falling hand carried a warning before it, at the same time that it dropped Barry swerved around in his chair. Not a hurried movement, but in some mysterious manner his shoulder was not in the way of the plump fist. It struck, instead, upon the back of the chair, and the marshal cursed bitterly.
"Stranger," he said hotly, "I got one thing to say: Jerry Strann has just died upstairs. In ten seconds Mac Strann will be down here lookin' for you!"
He stepped back, humming desperately to cover his wheezing, but Barry continued to braid the horsehair with deft fingers.
"I got a double knot that's kind of new," he said. "Want to watch me tie it?"
The deputy sheriff turned on the crowd.