It brought a growl, but no answer. Lebrun had never been seen to lift
his hand, but he was more dreaded than a rattler.

"We'll try," said Milligan dryly. "I ain't much of a man myself"--there
were dark rumors about Milligan's past and the crowd chuckled at this
modesty--"but I'll try my hand agin' him with a bit of backing. And
first I want to tell you boys that they ain't any danger of him having
aimed at Andy's hand. I tell you, it ain't possible, hardly, for him to
have planned to hit a swingin' target like that. Maybe some could do it.
I dunno."

"How about Lord Nick?"

"Sure, Lord Nick might do anything. But Donnegan ain't Lord Nick."

"Not by twenty pounds and three inches."

This brought a laugh. And by comparison with the terrible and familiar
name of Lord Nick, Donnegan became a smaller danger. Besides, as
Milligan said, it was undoubtedly luck. And when he called for
volunteers, three or four stepped up at once. The others made a general
milling, as though each were trying to get forward and each were
prevented by the crowd in front. But in the background big Jack Landis
was seriously trying to get to the firing line. He was encumbered with
the clinging weight of Nelly Lebrun.

"Don't go, Jack," she pleaded. "Please! Please! Be sensible. For my
sake!"

She backed this appeal with a lifting of her eyes and a parting of her
lips, and Jack Landis paused.

"You won't go, dear Jack?"

Now, Jack knew perfectly well that the girl was only half sincere. It is
the peculiar fate of men that they always know when a woman is playing
with them, but, from Samson down, they always go to the slaughter with
open eyes, hoping each moment that the girl has been seriously impressed
at last. As for Jack Landis, his slow mind did not readily get under the
surface of the arts of Nelly, but he knew that there was at least a
tinge of real concern in the girl's desire to keep him from the posse
which Milligan was raising.

"But they's something about him that I don't like, Nelly. Something sort
of familiar that I don't like." For naturally enough he did not
recognize the transformed Donnegan, and the name he had never heard
before. "A gunfighter, that's what he is!"

"Why, Jack, sometimes they call you the same thing; say that you hunt
for trouble now and then!"

"Do they say that?" asked the young chap quickly, flushing with vanity.
"Oh, I aim to take care of myself. And I'd like to take a hand with this
murdering