ead slowly sank. Then he asked hoarsely: "What's it mean?"

"Pard, take a peep round heah," drawled Blinky in slow cool speech that
seemed somehow to carry menace.

Pan wheeled. He had the shock of his life. He received it before his
whirling thoughts recorded the reason. It was as if he had to look
twice. Dick Hardman! Fashionably and wonderfully attired! Pan got no
farther than sight of the frock coat, elaborate vest, flowing tie, and
high hat. Then for a second he went blind.

When the red film cleared he saw Hardman pass him, saw the pallor of
his cheek, the quivering of muscle, the strained protruding of his eye.

He got one foot on the stage step when Pan found release for his voice.

"_Hardman_!"

That halted the youth, as if it had been a rope, but he never turned
his head. The shuffling of feet inside the coach hinted of more than
restlessness. There was a scattering of men from behind Pan.

He leaped at Hardman and spun him round.

"Where are you going?"

"Frisco, if it's--any of your business," replied Hardman incoherently.

"Looks like I'll make it my business," returned Pan menacingly. He
could not be himself here. The shock had been too great. His mind
seemed stultified.

"Hardman--do you mean--do you think--you're taking _her_--away?"
queried Pan, as if strangling.

"Ha!" returned Hardman with an upfling of head, arrogant, vain for all
his fear. "I know it.... She's my wife!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Destruction, death itself seemed to overthrow Panhandle Smith's
intensity of life. He reeled on his feet. For a moment all seemed
opaque, with blurred images. There was a crash, crash, crash of
something beating at his ears.

How long this terrible oblivion possessed Pan he did not know. But at
Hardman's move to enter the stage, he came back a million times more
alive than ever he had been--possessed of devils.

With one powerful lunge he jerked Hardman back and flung him sprawling
into the dust.

"There! Once more!..." cried Pan, panting. "Remember--the
schoolhouse? That fight over Lucy Blake! Damn your skunk soul!...
Get up, _if_ you've got a gun!"

Hardman leaned on his hand. His high hat had rolled away. His
broadcloth suit was covered with dust. But he did not note these
details of his abasement. Like a craven thing fascinated by a snake he
had his starting eyes fixed upon Pan, and his face was something no man
could bear to see.

"Get up--_if_ you've go