He did not complete the act, but was arrested in midair, one hand grasping the back of the chair, the other hand at his hip. Andrew, in the space of an instant, thought of three things—to kick the table from him and try to get to the side door of the place, to catch up the heavy sugar bowl and attempt to bowl over his man with a well-directed blow, or to simply sit and look Hal Dozier in the eye.
He had thought of the three things in the space that it would take a dog to snap at a fly and look away. He dismissed the first alternatives as absurd, and, picking up his cup of coffee, he raised his eyes slowly toward the ceiling, after the time-honored fashion of a man draining a glass, let his glance move gradually up and catch on the face of Dozier, and then, without haste, lowered the cup again to its saucer.
The flush of his own heavy meal kept his pallor from showing. As for Dozier, there was a succession of changes in his features, and then he concluded by lowering himself heavily the rest of the way into his chair. He gave his order to the proprietor in a dazed fashion, looking straight at Andrew, and the latter knew perfectly that the deputy marshal felt that he was in a dream. He was seeing what was not possible to see; his eyes were telling his brain in definite terms: "There sits Andrew Lanning and ten thousand dollars." But the reason of Dozier was speaking no less decidedly: "There sits a man without a weapon at his hip and actually beneath the poster which offers a reward for the capture of the person he resembles. Also, he is in a restaurant in the middle of a town. I have only to raise my voice in order to surround him."
And reason gained the upper hand, though Dozier continued to look at Andrew in a fascinated manner.
Suddenly the outlaw knew that it would not do to disregard that glance so long continued. To disregard it would be to start the suspicions of Dozier as soon as his brain cleared.
"Hello, stranger," said Andrew, and he merely made his voice a trifle husky and deep. "D'you know me?"
The eyes of Dozier widened, there was a convulsive motion of his arm, and then his glance wandered slowly away.
"Excuse me," he said. "I thought I remembered your face."
Should he let it rest at that? No, better risk a finishing touch. "No harm done," he said in the same loud voice. "Hey, captain, another cup of coffee, will you? And a cigar."
He tilted back in his chair and began to hum. And all the time his nerves were jumping, and that old frenzy was taking him by the throat, that bulldog eagerness for the fight. But fight emptyhanded—and against Hal Dozier?