The Untamed | Page 9

side of him. No one cared to press too close to this
sombre-faced giant. Purvis stood before him and Bill and Lee were
instantly at his side. The two leaned on the bar, facing him, yet the four
did not seem to make a group set apart from the rest.

"Well?" asked Lee.
"I'll tell you what it is when we're on the road," said Jim Silent. "Plenty
of time, Haines."
"Who'll start first?" asked Bill.
"You can, Kilduff," said the other. "Go straight north, and go slow.
Then Haines will follow you. Purvis next. I come last because I got
here last. There ain't any hurry--What's this here?"
"I tell you I seen it!" called an angry voice from a corner.
"You must of been drunk an' seein' double, partner," drawled the
answer.
"Look here!" said the first man, "I'm willin' to take that any way you
mean it!"
"An' I'm willin'," said the other, "that you should take it any way you
damn please."
Everyone in the room was grave except Jim Silent and his three
companions, who were smiling grimly.
"By God, Jack," said the first man with ominous softness, "I'll take a lot
from you but when it comes to doubtin' my word----"
Morgan, with popping eyes and a very red face, slapped his hand on the
bar and vaulted over it with more agility than his plumpness warranted.
He shouldered his way hurriedly through the crowd to the rapidly
widening circle around the two disputants. They stood with their right
hands resting with rigid fingers low down on their hips, and their eyes,
fixed on each other, forgot the rest of the world. Morgan burst in
between them.
"Look here," he thundered, "it's only by way of a favour that I'm lettin'
you boys wear shootin' irons today because I promised old Cumberland
there wouldn't be no fuss. If you got troubles there's enough room for

you to settle them out in the hills, but there ain't none at all in here!"
The gleam went out of their eyes like four candles snuffed by the wind.
Obviously they were both glad to have the tension broken. Mike wiped
his forehead with a rather unsteady hand.
"I ain't huntin' for no special brand of trouble," he said, "but Jack has
been ridin' the red-eye pretty hard and it's gotten into that dried up bean
he calls his brain."
"Say, partner," drawled Jack, "I ain't drunk enough of the hot stuff to
make me fall for the line you've been handing out."
He turned to Morgan.
"Mike, here, has been tryin' to make me believe that he knew a feller
who could drill a dollar at twenty yards every time it was tossed up."
The crowd laughed, Morgan loudest of all.
"Did you anyways have Whistlin' Dan in mind?" he asked.
"No, I didn't," said Mike, "an' I didn't say this here man I was talkin'
about could drill them every time. But he could do it two times out of
four."
"Mike," said Morgan, and he softened his disbelief with his smile and
the good-natured clap on the shoulder, "you sure must of been drinkin'
when you seen him do it. I allow Whistlin' Dan could do that an' more,
but he ain't human with a gun."
"How d'you know?" asked Jack, "I ain't ever seen him packin' a
six-gun."
"Sure you ain't," answered Morgan, "but I have, an' I seen him use it,
too. It was jest sort of by chance I saw it."
"Well," argued Mike anxiously, "then you allow it's possible if
Whistlin' Dan can do it. An' I say I seen a chap who could turn the

trick."
"An' who in hell is this Whistlin' Dan?" asked Jim Silent.
"He's the man that caught Satan, an' rode him," answered a bystander.
"Some man if he can ride the devil," laughed Lee Haines.
"I mean the black mustang that ran wild around here for a couple of
years. Some people tell tales about him being a wonder with a gun. But
Morgan's the only one who claims to have seen him work."
"Maybe you did see it, and maybe you didn't," Morgan was saying to
Mike noncommittally, "but there's some pretty fair shots in this room,
which I'd lay fifty bucks no man here could hit a dollar with a six-gun
at twenty paces."
"While they're arguin'," said Bill Kilduff, "I reckon I'll hit the trail."
"Wait a minute," grinned Jim Silent, "an' watch me have some fun with
these short-horns."
He spoke more loudly: "Are you makin' that bet for the sake of arguin',
partner, or do you calculate to back it up with cold cash?"
Morgan whirled upon him with a scowl, "I ain't pulled a bluff in my life
that I can't back