280“We don’t know any more about Danny Randall than we did,” observed Johnny, “but I tried a shot in the dark.”
“Nevertheless,” I told him, “I’m going to be there; and you want to make up your mind to just that.”
“You will come, of course,” agreed Johnny. “I suppose I cannot keep you from that. But Jim,” he commanded earnestly, “you must swear to keep out of the row, unless it develops into a general one; and you must swear not to speak to me or make any sign no matter what happens. I must play a lone hand.”
He was firm on this point; and in the end I gave my promise, to his evident relief.
“This is our visitors’ day, evidently,” he observed. “Here come two more men. One of them is the doctor; I’d know that hat two miles.”
“The other is our friend Danny Randall,” said I.
Dr. Rankin greeted us with a cordiality I had not suspected in him. Randall nodded in his usual diffident fashion, and slid into the oak shadow, where he squatted on his heels.
“About this Scar-face Charley,” he said abruptly, “I hear he’s issued his defi, and you’ve taken him up. Do you know anything about this sort of thing?”
“Not a bit,” admitted Johnny frankly. “Is it a duel; and are you gentleman here to act as my seconds?”
“It is not,” stated the downright doctor. “It’s a barroom murder and you cannot get around it; and I, for one, don’t try. But now you’re in for it, and you’ve got to go through with it.”