“But I don’t allow that red-headed cowboy gun-fighter to come into my place.”
“That is regrettable, for you will make an exception this time... Durade, you don’t stand well in Benton. I do.”
The Spaniard’s eyes glittered. “You insinuate—SENOR—”
“Yes,” interposed Hough, and his cold, deliberate voice dominated the explosive Durade. “Do you remember a gambler named Jones?... He was shot in this room... If I should happen to be shot here—in the same way—you and your gang would not last long in Benton!”
Durade’s face grew livid with rage and fear. And in that moment the mask was off. The nature of the Spaniard stood forth. Another manifest fact was that Durade had not before matched himself against a gambler of Hough’s caliber.
“Well, are you only a bluff or do we go on with the game?” inquired Hough.
Durade choked back his rage and signified with a motion of his hand that play should be resumed.
Allie fastened her eyes upon the door. She was in a tumult of emotion. Despite that, her mind revolved wild and intermittent ideas as to the risk of letting Neale see and recognize her there. Yet her joy was so overpowering that she believed if he entered the door she would rush to him and trust in God to save her. In God and Reddy King! She remembered the cowboy, and a thrill linked all her emotions. Durade and his gang would face a terrible reckoning if Reddy King ever entered to see her there.
Moments passed. The gambling went on. The players spoke low; the spectators were silent. Discordant sounds from outside disturbed the quiet.
Allie stared fixedly at the door. Presently it opened. Ancliffe entered with several men, all quick in movement, alert of eye. But Neale and Larry King were not among them. Allie’s heart sank like lead. The revulsion of feeling, the disappointment, was sickening. She saw Ancliffe shake his head, and divined in the action that he had not been able to find the friends Hough wanted particularly. Then Allie felt the incredible strangeness of being glad that Neale was not to find her there—that Larry was not to throw his guns on Durade’s crowd. There might be a chance of her being liberated without violence.