in silence, a light appeared suddenly in
the Red Front, from whose doors issued a babble of voices as of many men
talking at once. Dismounting, Colston and Endicott entered to see Barras
standing upon the bar in the act of lighting the second of the two huge
swinging lamps. "Looks like there'd been a battle," grinned Colston,
eyeing the barricade of kegs, the splintered mirror, and the litter of
broken glass.

"I'll tell a hand it was a battle!" vouchsafed a bystander. "That there
Texian, onct he got a-goin', was some ructious! He made his brag that he
was a wolf an' it was his night to howl. An', believe me! He was a curly
wolf! An' he howled, an' by God, he prowled! An' he's prowlin' yet--him
an' his woman, too."

"Texan!" cried Colston.

"Woman!" shouted Endicott. "What woman?"

"What woman d'ye s'pose?" growled Barras, glaring wrathfully from the
bar. "I don't know what woman. His woman, I guess--anyways they got
plumb away after we had him all _see_rounded, an' all over but the
shoutin'--an' all on account of Timber City's got a marshal which his
head's solid bone plumb through, like a rock; an' left the keg shoot
wide open fer him to beat it!"

"If you're so damn smart, why didn't you think of the keg shoot?"
retorted the representative of law and order. "You know'd it was there
an' I didn't."

"You lie! Unless you've fergot a whole lot sence--" A crash of thunder
drowned the irate bartender's voice.

"Hold on, Pete, don't git to runnin' off at the head an' say somethin'
yer sorry fer----"

"You'd be the one to be sorry, if folks know'd----"

"Talkin' don't git you nothin'. You listen here. We'll git this party
yet. If the boys that took after him don't bring him in, I'll post a
reward of a hundred dollars cash money out of my own pocket fer him----"

"Post it, then," snapped Barras, somewhat mollified, "git it on paper--"
Another, louder clap of thunder followed a vivid lightning flash and
wild with apprehension, Endicott forced his way to the bar and
interrupted the quarrel: "What did this woman look like? Where is she?"

A dozen men, all talking at once answered him: "Good looker--" "Wore
bran' new ridin' outfit--" "Rode a blaze-face buckskin--" "Said she
knowed him--" "Went right in--" "Tried to dicker with Hod an' git him
off--" The marshal pushed through the crowd to Endicott's side: "An'
what's more, when he come bustin' out of the alley an' rode off down the
trail she follered right in behin