Perhaps their very numbers would work against them. Even now they could be heard cautiously maneuvering. They would shoot through the door in his general direction, unaimed shots, with the hope of a chance hit, and eventually they would strike him down. Suppose he were to steal close to the door, leap over the bed, and plunge out among them, his Colt spitting lead and fire.
That unexpected attack would cleave a passage for him. The more he thought of it, the more clearly he saw that the chances of escape to the street were at least one in three. And yet he hesitated. If he made that break two or three innocent men would go down before his bullets, as he sprang out, shooting to kill. He shrank from the thought. He was amazed at himself. Never before had he been so tender of expedients. He had always fought to win—cleanly, but to win. Why was he suddenly remembering that to these men he was an outlaw, fit meat for the first bullet they could send home? Had he been one of them, he would have taken up a position in that very hall just as they were doing.
Slowly, reluctantly, fighting himself as he did it, he shoved his revolver back into his holster and determined to take the chance of that surprise attack, with his empty hands against their guns. If they did not drop him the instant he leaped out, he would be among them, too close for gunplay unless they took the chance of killing their own men.
Keeping his gaze fixed on Cartwright across the room—for the moment he showed his intention, Cartwright would shoot—he maneuvered softly toward the bed. Cartwright turned his head, but made no move to lift his gun. There was a reason. The light from the door fell nearer to the rancher than it did to Sinclair. To Cartwright he must be no more than a shapeless blur.
A gun exploded from the doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair. Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the room, as if he feared a loud noise would draw a bullet his way.
All at once there was no sound in the hotel, and, as the wave of silence spread, Sinclair was aware that the whole little town was listening, waiting, watching. Not a whisper in the hall, not a stir from Cartwright across the room. The quiet made the drama seem unreal.
Then that voice outside the window, which seemed to be Sinclair's Nemesis, cried: "Steady, boys. Something's going to happen. He's getting ready. Buck up, boys!"
In a moment of madness Sinclair decided to rush that window and dispose of the cool-minded speaker at all costs before he died. There, at least, was the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two bullets into the wall, trimming the side of the window.
Only clear, deep-throated laughter came in response.
"I told you, boys. I read his mind, and he's mad at me, eh?"