"Nay!" he said sharply, and with curious eagerness, "Du not 'chrown' um bhoy! lave um tu me!" And he grasped one of the big, struggling man's wrists firmly in a vise-like grip. "Leggo, Yorkey!"
The latter obeyed with alacrity, and stooping he picked up the fallen gun. He had an inkling of what was coming.
"Ah-hh!" Slavin gloated gutterally, as he whirled his victim giddily around and brought the man up facing him with a violent jerk—"Windy Moran, avick!"—softly and cruelly—"me wud-be cock av a wan-harse dump!—me wud-be 'bad-man'! . . . Oh, yes! 'tis both shockin' an' brutil tu misthreat ye I know but—surely, surely yeh desarve somethin' for all this!" And he drew back his formidable right arm.
Smack! The terrific impact of that one, terrible open-handed slap nearly knocked his victim through the bar-room wall. The head rocked sideways and the big body turned completely round. Eyes rushing water and one profile now resembling a slab of bloodied liver, the man reeled about in a circle as if bereft of sight.
"Oh-hh!—Ooh!—No-o!—Ah-hh!" The wild, moaning cry for quarter came gaspingly out of puffed, blood-foamed lips. But there was no mercy in Slavin. He looked round at the wrecked bar, the glass-slashed bleeding faces of his men and the rest of the saloon's occupants. He thought upon many things—how near ignoble death many of them had been but a few minutes before—upon insult and threat flaunted at them by a drunken, ruffling braggadocio!—and he jerked the latter to him once more.
But his two subordinates jumped forward and made violent protest. "Steady!" It was Yorke now who appealed for leniency—"Go easy, Burke! for God's sake! You've handed him one good swipe—if he get's another like that he'll be all in—won't be able to talk. Let it go at that!"
The sergeant remained silent, breathing thickly and glaring at his prisoner with sinister, glittering eyes, and still retaining the latter's wrist in his iron grip. But eventually the force of Yorke's reasoning prevailed with him. Drawing out his hand-cuffs he snapped them on the man's wrists and haled him roughly out of the bar into the hotel office. The crowd, recovering somewhat from their scare, would have followed, but he curtly ordered them back and closed the door.
"Brophy!" He beckoned the angry, frightened hotel-proprietor forward.
"Is Bob Ingalls and Chuck Reed still in town?"
"Sure!" replied the latter, "They was both in here 'bout half an hour ago, anyways."
Slavin turned to Yorke. "Go yu an' hunt up thim fellers an' bring thim here!" he ordered.