Before the last verse the song was going with a whoop. Nearly everybody present had sidestepped Dutch. Many had gone in fear of his vicious, erratic temper. It was a great relief to see him humiliated and driven away.
Dutch looked neither to the right nor to the left. He sat hunched in his seat, head down and teeth clenched. At any moment the demonstration might turn into a lynching bee now that Aurora had lost its fear of him.
The stage rolled away in a cloud of dust.
Hugh turned, to find himself facing Captain Palmer.
“Don’t you know better than to let Sam Dutch get away alive after you’ve got the drop on him?” Palmer asked.
“I couldn’t kill him in cold blood.”
“Hmp! He’d have killed you that way, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes. But I’m no murderer.”
Palmer looked the youth over with a new respect. “Shoot straight?”
“I’m a pretty good shot.”