“I’m my own boss!” snarled the man with the weapon.
“You’re a blamed fool too,” answered Baker.
“Well, that’s my lookout.” Wade glared over his shoulder and raised his voice significantly: “I want to show this town how easy it will be fer me to put three balls into the blackest heart that ever pumped human blood.”
“You’d better mind what yo’re about, Jeff Wade.” Pole Baker was pale, his lips were tight, his eyes flashing.
“I know what I’m about. I’m tryin’ to draw a coward from his lair. I’m not shore—I’m not dead shore, mind you, but I’m mighty nigh it. Ef the guilty stand an’ hear what I’m a-sayin’ an’ don’t take it up, they are wuss than hell-tainted. You watch that white mark.”
The bystanders, several comprehending, stood rigid. Pole Baker stared. Wade raised his revolver, aimed steadily at the mark and fired three shots in quick succession.
“Thar!” said the marksman, with grim triumph, “as bad as my sight is, I kin see ’em from here.”
“By gum, they are thar!” exclaimed Peters, with a strange look into Pole Baker’s set face. “They are thar, Pole.”
“You bet they are thar, an’ some’ll be in another spot ’fore long,” said Wade. “Now, Peters, you go in the house an’ bring me my account. I’ve got the money.”
Wonderingly the clerk obeyed. Pole went into the store behind him, and, as Peters stood at the big ledger figuring, Pole stepped up to Nelson Floyd, who sat near a window in the rear with a newspaper in front of him.