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“There, now!Be quiet, now!” said the old man weakly.

“Shame be upon you, Patrick Scully!”The girls rallying to this slogan, sniffed disdainfully in the direction of those trembling accomplices, the cowboy and the Easterner. Presently they bore Johnnie away, and left the three men to dismal reflection.

VII

“I’d like to fight this here Dutchman myself,” said the cowboy, breaking a long silence.

Scully wagged his head sadly.”No, that wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, why wouldn’t it?” argued the cowboy.”I don’t see no harm in it.”

“No,” answered Scully with mournful heroism.”It wouldn’t be right. It was Johnnie’s fight, and now we mustn’t whip the man just because he whipped Johnnie.”

“Yes, that’s true enough,” said the cowboy; “but — he better not get fresh with me, because I couldn’t stand no more of it.”

“You’ll not say a word to him,” commanded Scully, and even then they heard the tread of the Swede on the stairs. His entrance was made theatric. He swept the door back with a bang and swaggered to the middle of the room. No one looked at him.”Well,” he cried, insolently, at Scully, “I s’pose you’ll tell me now how much I owe you?”

The old man remained stolid.”You don’t owe me nothin’.”

“Huh!” said the Swede, “huh!Don’t owe ‘im nothin’.”

The cowboy addressed the Swede.”Stranger, I don’t see how you come to be so gay around here.”

Old Scully was instantly alert.”Stop!” he shouted, holding his hand forth, fingers upward.”Bill, you shut up!”

The cowboy spat carelessly into the sawdust box.”I didn’t say a word, did I?” he asked.

“Mr. Scully,” called the Swede, “how much do I owe you?”It was seen that he was attired for departure, and that he had his valise in his hand.

“You don’t owe me nothin’,” repeated Scully in his same imperturbable way.

“Huh!” said the Swede.”I guess you’re right. I guess if it was any way at all, you’d owe me somethin’. That’s what I guess.”He turned to the cowboy.”‘Kill him!Kill him!Kill him!'” he mimicked, and then guffawed victoriously.”Kill him!”He was convulsed with ironical humor.

But he might have been jeering the dead. The three men were immovable and silent, staring with glassy eyes at the stove.

The Swede opened the door and passed into the storm, giving one derisive glance backward at the still group.

As soon as the door was closed, Scully and the cowboy leaped to their feet and began to curse. They trampled to and fro, waving their arms and smashing into the air with their fists.”Oh, but that was a hard minute!” wailed Scully.”That was a hard minute!Him there leerin’ and scoffin’!One bang at his nose was worth forty dollars to me that minute!How did you stand it, Bill?”

“How did I stand it?” cried the cowboy in a quivering voice.”How did I stand it?Oh!”

The old man burst into sudden brogue.”I’d loike to take that Swade,” he wailed, “and hould ‘im down on a shtone flure and bate ‘im to a jelly wid a shtick!”

The cowboy groaned in sympathy.”I’d like to git him by the neck and ha-ammer him” — he brought his hand down on a chair with a noise like a pistol-shot — “hammer that there Dutchman until he couldn’t tell himself from a dead coyote!”

“I’d bate ‘im until he — “

“I’d show himsome things — “

And then together they raised a yearning fanatic cry.”Oh-o-oh! if we only could — “

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“And then I’d — “

“O-o-oh!”

VIII

The Swede, tightly gripping his valise, tacked across the face of the storm as if he carried sails. He was following a line of little naked gasping trees, which he knew must mark the way o
f the road. His face, fresh from the pounding of Johnnie’s fists, felt more pleasure than pain in the wind and the driving snow. A number of square shapes loomed upon him finally, and he knew them as the houses of the main body of the town. He found a street and made travel along it, leaning heavily upon the wind whenever, at a corner, a terrific blast caught him.