hand toward the frightened
loungers and railroad officials. His revolver was out in the open now.
He let its barrel waver in a semi-circle of defiance.

"No. They won't help me, but they'll hang you. There's no hole where
you can hide that they won't find you. Before night you'll be swinging
underneath the big live-oak on the plaza. That's a prophecy for you to
swallow, you four-flushing bully."

It went home like an arrow. The furtive eyes of the killer slid
sideways to question this public which had scattered so promptly to
save itself. Would the mob turn on him later and destroy him?

Young Beaudry's voice flowed on. "Even if you reached the hills, you
would be doomed. Tighe can't save you--and he wouldn't try.
Rutherford would wash his hands of you. They'll drag you back from
your hole."

The prediction rang a bell in Meldrum's craven soul. Again he sought
reassurance from those about him and found none. In their place he
knew that he would revenge himself for present humiliation by cruelty
later. He was checkmated.

It was an odd psychological effect of Beaudry's hollow defiance that
confidence flowed in upon him as that of Meldrum ebbed. The chill
drench of fear had lifted from his heart. It came to him that his
enemy lacked the courage to kill. Safety lay in acting upon this
assumption.

He raised his left hand and brushed the barrel of the revolver aside
contemptuously, then turned and walked along the platform to the
building. At the door he stopped, to lean faintly against the jamb,
still without turning. Meldrum might shoot at any moment. It depended
on how drunk he was, how clearly he could vision the future, how
greatly his prophecy had impressed him. Cold chills ran up and down
the spinal column of the young cattleman. His senses were reeling.

To cover his weakness Roy drew tobacco from his coat-pocket and rolled
a cigarette with trembling fingers. He flashed a match. A moment
later an insolent smoke wreath rose into the air and floated back
toward Meldrum. Roy passed through the waiting-room to the street
beyond.

Young Beaudry knew that the cigarette episode had been the weak bluff
of one whose strength had suddenly deserted him. He had snatched at it
to cover his weakness. But to the score or more who saw that spiral of
smoke dissolving jauntily into air, no such thought was possible. The
filmy wreath represented the acme of dare-devil recklessness, the final
proof