Silent hesitated. His code was loose, but he did not like to take advantage of a drunk or a crazy man. However, five hundred dollars was five hundred dollars. Moreover that handsome fellow who had just taken water from Hal Purvis and was now smiling foolishly at his own shame, had actually ridden Red Peter. The remembrance infuriated Silent.
“Hurry up,” said Morgan confidently. “I dunno what you’re thinkin’, stranger. Which I’m kind of deaf an’ I don’t understand the way anything talks except money.”
“Corral that talk, Morgan!” called a voice from the crowd, “you’re plumb locoed if you think any man in the world can get away with a stunt like that! Pick four in the air!”
“You keep your jaw for yourself,” said Silent angrily, “if he wants to donate a little more money to charity, let him do it. Morgan, I’ve got five hundred here to cover your stake.”
“Make him give you odds, Morgan,” said another voice, “because——”
A glance from Silent cut the suggestion short. After that there was little loud conversation. The stakes were large. The excitement made the men hush the very tones in which they spoke. Morgan moistened his white lips.
“You c’n see I’m not packin’ any shootin’ irons,” said Dan. “Has anybody got any suggestions?”
Every gun in the crowd was instantly at his service. They were heartily tempted to despise Dan, but as one with the courage to attempt the impossible, they would help him as far as they could. He took their guns one after the other, weighed them, tried the action, and handed them back. It was almost as if there were a separate intelligence in the ends of his fingers which informed him of the qualities of each weapon.
“Nice gun,” he said to the first man whose revolver he handled, “but I don’t like a barrel that’s quite so heavy. There’s a whole ounce too much in the barrel.”
“What d’you mean?” asked the cowpuncher. “I’ve packed that gun for pretty nigh eight years!”
“Sorry,” said Dan passing on, “but I can’t work right with a top-heavy gun.”
The next weapon he handed back almost at once.
“What’s the matter with that?” asked the owner aggressively.
“Cylinder too tight,” said Dan decisively, and a moment later to another man, “Bad handle. I don’t like the feel of it.”
Over Jim Silent’s guns he paused longer than over most of the rest, but finally he handed them back. The big man scowled.
Dan looked back to him in gentle surprise.
“You see,” he explained quietly, “you got to handle a gun like a horse. If you don’t treat it right it won’t treat you right. That’s all I know about it. Your gun ain’t very clean, stranger, an’ a gun that ain’t kept clean gets off feet.”
Silent glanced at his weapons, cursed softly, and restored them to the holsters.
“Lee,” he muttered to Haines, who stood next to him, “what do you think he meant by that? D’ you figger he’s got somethin’ up his sleeve, an’ that’s why he acts so like a damned woman?”
“I don’t know,” said Haines gravely, “he looks to me sort of queer—sort of different—damned different, chief!”
By this time Dan had secured a second gun which suited him. He whirled both guns, tried their actions alternately, and then announced that he was ready. In the dead silence, one of the men paced off the twenty yards.
Dan, with his back turned, stood at the mark, shifting his revolvers easily in his hands, and smiling down at them as if they could understand his caress.
“How you feelin’, Dan?” asked Morgan anxiously.
“Everything fine,” he answered.
“Are you gettin’ weak?”
“No, I’m all right.”
“Steady up, partner.”
“Steady up? Look at my hand!”
Dan extended his arm. There was not a quiver in it.
“All right, Dan. When you’re shootin’, remember that I got pretty close to everything I own staked on you. There’s the stranger gettin’ his four dollars ready.”
Silent took his place with the four dollars in his hand.
“Are you ready?” he called.
“Let her go!” said Dan, apparently without the least excitement.
Jim Silent threw the coins, and he threw them so as to increase his chances as much as possible. A little snap of his hand gave them a rapid rotary motion so that each one was merely a speck of winking light. He flung them high, for it was probable that Whistling Dan would wait to shoot until they were on the way down. The higher he threw them the more rapidly they would be travelling when they crossed the level of the markman’s eye.
As a shout proclaimed the throwing of the coins, Dan whirled, and it seemed to the bystanders that a revolver exploded before he was fully turned; but one of the coins never rose to the height of the throw. There was a light “cling!” and it spun a dozen yards away. Two more shots blended almost together; two more dollars darted away in twinkling streaks of light. One coin still fell, but when it was a few inches from the earth a six-shooter barked again and the fourth dollar glanced sidewise into the dust. It takes long to describe the feat. Actually, the four shots consumed less than a second of time.
“That last dollar,” said Dan, and his soft voice was the first sound out of the silence, “wasn’t good. It didn’t ring true. Counterfeit?”
It seemed that no one heard his words. The men were making a wild scramble for the dollars. They dived into the dust for them, rising white of face and clothes to fight and struggle over their prizes. Those dollars with the chips and neat round holes in them would confirm the truth of a story that the most credulous might be tempted to laugh or scorn. A cowpuncher offered ten dollars for one of the relics—but none would part with a prize.
The moment the shooting was over Dan stepped quietly back and restored the guns to the owners. The first man seized his weapon carelessly. He was in the midst of his rush after one of the chipped coins. The other cowpuncher received his weapon almost with reverence.
“I’m thankin’ you for the loan,” said Dan, “an here’s hopin’ you always have luck with the gun.”
“Luck?” said the other. “I sure will have luck with it. I’m goin’ to oil her up and put her in a glass case back home, an’ when I get grandchildren I’m goin’ to point out that gun to ’em and tell ’em what men used to do in the old days. Let’s go in an’ surround some red-eye at my expense.”
“No thanks,” answered Dan, “I ain’t drinkin’.”
He stepped back to the edge of the circle and folded his arms. It was as if he had walked out of the picture. He suddenly seemed to be aloof from them all.
Out of the quiet burst a torrent of curses, exclamations, and shouts. Chance drew Jim Silent and his three followers together.
“My God!” whispered Lee Haines, with a sort of horror in his voice, “it wasn’t human! Did you see? Did you see?”
“Am I blind?” asked Hal Purvis, “an’ think of me walkin’ up an’ bracin’ that killer like he was a two-year-old kid! I figger that’s the nearest I ever come to a undeserved grave, an’ I’ve had some close calls! ‘That last dollar wasn’t good! It didn’t ring true,’ says he when he finished. I never seen such nerve!”
“You’re wrong as hell,” said Silent, “a woman can shoot at a target, but it takes a cold nerve to shoot at a man—an’ this feller is yellow