The coldness of it was icy. The brutal purpose consummate. The man was in liquor, but it was no drunken proposal. It was considered and confident.
A hot flush swept over the girl’s beautiful cheeks. It dyed her fine brows right up to the roots of her no less vivid hair. Then she smiled, and her eyes glittered. She shook her head.
“You’re drunk or crazy,” she said. “I don’t know where you come from. I don’t even know your name. But I guess you best get back to the dirt you scratch your gold out of. It’s the only place for men like you.”
Claire spoke quietly, but there was that in her words and tone that was indescribable in its utter contempt. Cy Liskard withdrew the bunch of money he was grasping with a jerk. He stood up. And his cold gaze passed swiftly over the crowd of faces watching the scene. Then his eyes came to rest again on the beautiful creature he so obviously coveted, and dull fury looked out of them.
“You b——!”
But the filthy epithet was smothered. A man’s great fist crashed it back into the foul throat that had inspired it. Cy Liskard reeled. He fell backwards against the chair from which he had arisen. And when he recovered himself he was looking into the muzzle of a heavy automatic pistol with the fierce, narrow eyes of Ivor McLagan behind the weapon.
“You swine! Beat it! Beat it right out of here or I’ll send you plumb to the hell you belong to! Push up your hands, darn you! Push ’em up, an’ beat it!”
But the man made no attempt to obey. His pale eyes stared back into the fury burning in the engineer’s. His hands remained by his sides.
Those looking on realised the thing about to happen. There was movement and scurrying as those in other parts of the room scrambled out of the line of fire. This stranger man was looking on death, calmly and without yielding. Another moment and——