“Time I was going,” he said, and his voice rang clear.
“Going where?” Prowers’s hand stopped caressing his unshaven chin and fell, almost too casually, to his side.
They glared at each other, tense, crouched, eyes narrowed and unwinking. Duels are fought and lost in that preliminary battle of locked eyes which precedes the short, sharp stabbings of the cartridge explosions. Soul searches soul for the temper of the foe’s courage.
Neither gaze wavered. Each found the other stark, indomitable. The odds were heavily in favor of the old cattleman. He was a practiced gunman. Quicker than the eye could follow would come the upsweep of his arm. He could fire from the hip without taking aim. Nobody in the county could empty a revolver faster than he. But the younger man had one advantage. He had disarranged Prowers’s plans by taking the initiative, by forcing the killer’s hand. This was unexpected. It disturbed Jake the least in the world. His opponents usually dodged a crisis that would lead to conflict.
A cold blast beat into the house. In the open doorway stood a man, the range rider Black. Both men stared at him silently. Each knew that his coming had changed the conditions of the equation.
Under the blue cheek of the newcomer a quid of tobacco stood out. It was impossible to tell from his impassive face how much or how little of the situation he guessed.
“Ran outa smokin’,” he said. “Thought I’d drap over an’ have you loan me the makin’s.”
He had closed the door. Now he shuffled forward to the fire and with a charred stick knocked the snow from his webs.
“A sure enough rip-snorter, if any one asks you,” he continued mildly by way of comment on the weather. “Don’t know as I recall any storm wuss while it lasted. I seen longer ones, unless this ’un ’s jest gatherin’ second wind.”
Tug drew a deep breath of relief and eased down. Red tragedy had been hovering in the gathering shadows of the room. It was there no longer. The blessed homely commonplace of life had entered with the lank homesteader and his need of “the makin’s.”