"Where's Madrid?" he demanded again at one minute to twelve. "Where's Eddie?"
The batwings eased open, but it was only another knot of workmen crowding in. They shoved up to the bar directly in front of Sid. They were all big men, and he couldn't see the door at all now without moving out of reach of the gun.
It was noon by his watch, a minute after. His fingers touched the stock of the shotgun. He craned his neck and found himself looking into the grinning Irish face of Keef O'Hara.
"Take care with that trigger finger, lad," O'Hara said. "Blast one of these terriers, accidental or not, and the rest will decorate a rope with you."
The truth of this struck Sid like a blow, and he took his hand off the gun. He knew now that he wasn't going to use it. You couldn't shoot anybody in this mob, terrier or troublebuster, and hope to live. The crowd was pressing around the ends of the bar. He whirled, making a pushing gesture with his hands; then he whirled the other way, astonished to find himself alone; the bartenders had been swallowed by the crush and passed from hand to hand.
Then someone was reaching past him, taking the sawed-off shotgun from under the bar. It was Tesno. He said, "Get out of town, Sid."
Sid went weak and sick and then into a blind rage. He knocked the gun aside and drove a fist into Tesno's stomach. Tesno took the punch, stepping back with it; his bootheel caught and he went down, turning sideways and landing on one knee. Sid strode forward, starting a kick, but Tesno rolled into his legs, grasped one of them, drove a shoulder into Sid's groin. Sid lit flat on his back, got an elbow in the stomach that took the wind and the fight out of him.
He was hoisted to his feet, spun around the bar and through the crowd to a group in the center of the saloon. These were the bartenders and the gamblers, ringed by a little cordon of guards.
"They kept pressing in till they swallowed us up," one of the dealers moaned. "I reached for the revolver I had in my pocket and there was already a hand on it...."
The crowd was briefly unruly now, scrambling for the contents of the cash boxes and the liquor on the back bar. A half dozen men with axes on their shoulders filed through to the back rooms. There was a prolonged crash of glass from the storeroom.