Judith of the Plains | Page 7

They all remembered the incident in question, and thundered applause
at the reappearance of an old favorite. Without warning, a shadow fell
across the sunlight-flooded room, and, as one after another of the men
glanced up from the table, they saw standing in the doorway a man of
such malignant aspect that his look fell across the company like a
menace. The swing of their banter slowed suddenly; it was as if the
cold of a new-turned grave had struck across the June sunshine
checking their roughshod fun. None of them had the hardihood to joke
with a man that stood in the shadow of death; and hate and murder
looked from the eyes of the man in the doorway and looked towards
Simpson. One by one they perceived the man of the shadow, all but
Simpson, eating steak drowned in Worcestershire.
The man in the doorway was tall and lean, and the prison blench upon
his face was in unpleasant contrast to the ruddy tan of the faces about
the table. His sombrero was tipped back and the hair hung dank about
the pale, sweating forehead, suggestive of sickness. But weak health
did not imply weak purpose; every feature in that hawk-like face was
sharp with hatred, and in the narrowing eye was vengeance that is
sweet.
He stood still; there was in his hatred a something hypnotic that grew
imperceptibly and imperceptibly communicated itself to the men at
table. He gloated over the eating fat man as if he had dwelt much in
imagination on the sight and was in no hurry to curtail his joy at the
reality. The men began to get restless, shuffle their feet, moisten their
lips; only the college boy spoke, and then from a wealth of ignorance,
knowing nothing of the rugged, give-and-take justice of the plains--an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the law and the courts go hang
while a man's got a right arm to pull a trigger. Not one in all that
company, even the cattle-men whose interests were opposed to

Rodney's, but felt the justice of his errand.
"When did they let him out?" whispered the college boy; and then,
"Oughtn't we to do something?"
"Yis, me son," whispered Costigan. "We ought to sit still and learn a
thing or two."
The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point of
a knife. There was nothing more to eat in the way of substantials, and
he debated pouring a little more of the sauce on his plate and mopping
it with a bit of bread still uneaten. Considering the pro and con of this
extra tid-bit, he glanced up and saw the gaunt man standing in the
doorway.
Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a
cry that died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak. He looked
about wildly, like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall. The men
about the table got up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man.
It was all like a dream to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of
the kind before and could not realize now that it was happening.
Rodney advanced, never once relaxing the look in which he seemed to
hold his enemy as in a vise. Simpson was like a man bewitched. Once,
twice, he made a grab for his revolver, but his right hand seemed to
have lost power to heed the bidding of his will. Rodney, now well
towards the centre of the room, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony,
for Simpson to get his six-shooter.
It was one of those moments in which time seems to have become
petrified. The limp-clad proprietress of the eating-house, made curious
by the sudden silence, looked in from the kitchen. Simpson, his eyes
wandering like a trapped rat, saw, and called, through teeth that
chattered in an ague of fear, "Ree--memm--her thth--there's la--dies
p--present! For Gawd's sake, remember t--there's ladies p--present!"
The pale man looked towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he
gave Simpson a look in which there was only contempt. "You've hid
behind the law once, and this time it's petticoats. The open don't seem

to have no charm for you. But--" He didn't finish, there was no need to.
Every one knew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked
into the street.
The men broke into shouts of laughter, loud and ringing, then doubled
up and had it out all over again. And their noisy merriment was as clear
an indication of the suddenly lifted strain, at the averted shooting, as it
was of their enjoyment of the farce. Simpson, relieved of the fear of
sudden death, now