A mud-stained wagon with a dirty canvas top had been unhitched close to the street. Two bony and dejected horses were tied to the wheels eating some brush that they were trying to persuade themselves was hay.
Hugh commented on the broomtails. “So thin they won’t throw a shadow.”
A moment later he was sorry, for as they rounded the wagon he saw a woman and child crouched over a camp fire. They were cooking a stew. A man sat on the wagon tongue smoking. He looked at the passing men out of sullen, clouded eyes.
A voice from the sidewalk drifted to the brothers. “Trouble, looks like. Sam Dutch has got Red Mike backed up against the bar of the Mile High, and he’s tryin’ to devil him into drawing a six-shooter.”
On the heels of the words there came the sound of a shot, followed by a second. A swift trampling of many feet, and the side door of the Mile High burst open. Men poured out of it as seeds are squirted from a pressed lemon. They dived in every direction to escape. After them came a single man, bare-headed, a revolver in his hand. He looked wildly round, then fled to the shelter of the wagon for safety. A huge fellow, bellowing like a bull, tore out of the saloon in pursuit.
An ironclad rule of the old fighting West is that every quarrel is a private one. No outsider has any right to interfere. Under ordinary conditions, the first impulse of the McClintocks would have been to dive for cover. The West considers it no reflection on a man’s courage for him to sing small when guns are out to settle a difference of opinion which is no concern of his.
The McClintocks, as though moved by the same spring, wheeled in their tracks and ran back to the wagon. The man on the tongue was disappearing into the bed through the opening in the canvas. But the woman and the little girl, terror-stricken, stood spellbound beside the fire. Pursued and pursuer were charging straight toward them. A bullet struck with a metallic clang the iron pot in the live coals. The child screamed.
Roughly the woman and the little girl went down at the same instant, flung to the ground by the impact of flying bodies. They heard more shots, but they knew nothing of what was going on. For the McClintock brothers were crouched above them, shielding them from the danger of wild bullets. They did not see the red-headed man stumble and pitch forward, nor did they see the big ruffian at his heels fling shot after shot into his prostrate form.
Hugh released his weight from the child, and lifted her to her feet in such a way that her face was turned from the tragedy.
“Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl, and don’t turn yore head,” he said, and his voice was very gentle.