A cry, half snarling laughter, from the crowd about the table, now grown to a score: “Aha—gr-ringo!”
A movement of the crowd forward to rush Grant against the wall. Then with a cougar’s spring the big Arizonan was on the solid table, feet spread wide apart, head towering above the tin light shade. He balanced a chair in one hand as the conductor of an orchestra might lift his baton. His gaunt features were split in a wide grin. Before Grant could gather his senses a big paw had him by the shoulder and was dragging him up onto the green island of refuge.
“They don’t saw no whizzer off on a white man wiles ole Jed Hawkins’ boy got his health,” Grant’s companion bellowed a welcome. “I got these greasers’ number, brother!”
Grant’s gaze as he rose to his feet over the heads all about encountered two interesting objects. One was Colonel Urgo, who stood alone in a far corner of the room; the colonel was smiling with rare good humour. A second was a man wrapped about with a blanket, over whose shoulder appeared the tip of a rifle; he was just coming through from the front room on a run and there were three like him following. Rurales, the somewhat informal bandit-policemen of Mexico.
Just what ensued Grant never could quite piece together. He remembered seeing Hawkins wrench off a leg from his chair and send it whizzing at a central cluster of light globes in mid-ceiling. They snuffed out with a thin tinkling of glass. Then the rush.
Out of the dark swirl of figures about the table’s edge a vivid spit of flame—roar of a pistol shot. Hands grappling for braced legs on the table top. “Huh” of breath expelled as Hawkins swung his chair in a wide sweep downward. A cry, “Hesus!” Oaths chirped in the voice of songbirds. A knife missing its objective and trembling rigid in the midst of the baize.
The table collapsed with dull creakings, and then the affair of mauling and writhing became a bear pit. Grant fought with steady, measured short-arm jabs delivered at whatever object lay nearest. When one arm was pinioned he swung the other against the restraining body until it was freed. Some one sank teeth in his shoulder.
“Ride ’em, Noo Yawker!” came the shrill cry of battle from somewhere in the mill. Then a blow at the base of the brain which meant lights out for Grant.
When consciousness came halting back he found himself standing half-supported by two of the rurales in a dark street and before a high gate in unbroken masonry. The gate swung inward. He was propelled violently through the dark arch and into a small room, where sat a man in uniform under a dusty electric globe. He did not look up from the scratching of his pen on the desk before him.
A door behind the writing man opened and Colonel Urgo entered. His start at seeing the bloodied and half-clothed figure which the rurales supported was well acted. A hand came to the vizor of his cap in mocking salute. Then he turned to the man at the desk and exchanged low words with him.