Rearing Bill shambled from saloon to saloon. On each circuit he became more uproarious, more exacting in his demands; and when in the Happy Medium a frightened bartender put out a half size whisky glass instead of a double size according to the fashion set by Flat Face Dink, Rearing Bill with a grizzly-like swipe of the muzzle of his gun knocked the unfortunate liquor clerk senseless. He then stood, amused for an instant by the spectacle of the poor devil sprawled limp on the floor.
“Heh!” Rearing Bill snarled. “Cheat me on m’ liquor, eh! Heh!”
He turned, surging to glare from sunken eyes at the white faced onlookers. As he stared at them one by one they all shrank, watchful of the swinging of the carelessly handled revolver, the drunken man’s unsteady finger on the trigger, the hammer drawn back at full cock and the big, powerful paw holding the barrel as steady as a mounted cannon.
There was in Boxelder a shiftless, shaky, friendless hanger-on known as Odd Jobbing Det Linver, a huddled up, raggedly dressed fellow who was kicked around by every one. There had been an interval of ten or fifteen minutes’ quiet when Odd Jobbing Det appeared in Squint Legere’s barroom. The man who had been reading the weekly paper in the lobby laid it on the hotel clerk’s desk and entered the barroom from the lobby just as Det entered from the rear alley, looking anxiously behind him.
Rearing Bill had catfooted, as softly as a grizzly bear on the sneak, into the front entrance. Flat Face Dink looked up with a genial smile of welcome, so the bully grinned widely as he started for the bar. Thus Odd Jobbing Det backed right into the very big fellow he was scared to meet. It was an abrupt collision.
Rearing Bill grunted. He glanced around, stopped and saw the cringing, shrinking wretch who looked up at him with utterly abject fear. For an instant Rearing Bill stared and glared; then he began to grin as he surged at the victim thus thrown in his way. Odd Jobbing Det backed till he was stopped by the wall. Then Rearing Bill cuffed and kicked, abusing the wretched weakling, who blubbered, whimpered, choked and begged. The more he pleaded for mercy the more the bully slapped and poked him with the big revolver.
“I’ve a notion to kill you,” Rearing Bill suggested tentatively, “’sultin’ me thataway. I’ve a notion to cut yer heart out an’ eat it! I’ve a notion to shoot ye—’sultin’ me. Me—bumping into me—walkin’ all over me. I’ve a notion to kill an’ eat ye f’r breakfast—”’
The spectators, shrinking along the walls, edging away, froze with expectancy as they saw the tentative suggestion of murder congealing into determination to kill. Rearing Bill had worked himself up to a fury. He was weaving in savage ferocity. He glanced around, covertly from under his bushy brows, taking in the white faces and the fears in the eyes of the beholders.
“Yes, sir, I’m going t’ kill you!” he suddenly snarled.
But, like a cat playing with a victim Rearing Bill deliberately delayed. Here was a worthless, terror stricken, utterly helpless and friendless victim. Odd Jobbing Det looked his sorry misery and his voice went up in a shrill breaking wail of hopeless terror, for he felt the drunken brute’s determination to “get a man”, establishing a reputation as bad, killing to see a victim kick.