Six Feet Four

their former enforced inactivity rather than any hope of success had sent them hot-foot on the pursuit. The noisy, windy night, the absolu

few moments ago. Voices from the spare bed room urged Ma Drury to bring an account of the adventure, and Poke's wife, having first escorted the wounded man to her own be

ther, the strong drink of the frontier; but after a little, as though this had been a novel sight in the beginning but soon lost interest for her, she let her look droop to the fire. Fresh dry fuel had been piled on the back log and at last a grateful sense of warmth and sleepiness pervaded her being. She no longer felt hunger; she was too tired, her eyelids had grown too heavy for her to harbour t

pped a little forward, she experienced the sensations of the day. Many a time that day as the racing horses obeying the experienced hand of the driver swept around a sharp turn in the road she had looked down a sheer cliff that had made her flesh quiver so that it had been hard not to draw back and cry out. She had seen the horses leaping forward scamper like mad runaways down a long slope, dash

ess she did not know. Perhaps a new voice in her ears, perhaps Poke Drury's tones become suddenly shrill. Or it may be that just a sudden sinking and falling away into utter silence of all voices, the growing still of hands upon dice cu

e stared, in bewilderment. She heard old man Adams's tongue clicking in his toothless old mouth. She saw Hap Smith, his expression one of pure amazement, s

nd his face was unhidden. But there was the hugeness of him, bulking big in the doorway, the spare, sinewy height made the taller by his tall boot heels, the wide black hat with the drooping brim from which rain drops

swiftly and closed the door. He had glanced sharply at the girl by the fire; she had shaded her eyes with her ha

eing the first to break th

first, he fascinated her. He was like the night and the storm itself, big, powerful, not the kind born to know and suffer restraint; but rather the type of man to dwell in such lands as stretched mile after unfenced m

more than that, bred here, he was fearless. Also fortune had given him a place of vantage. His body was half screened by that of Hap Smith and by a corner of the bar. H

triumph. "I got you, dad burn you!" And at th

hornton

ead turning quickly so that his eyes wer

m Thornton." And, "Got me, hav

hots and smelled powder and seen spurting red blood. A little surge of sick

epeated the old man

an yet that I'm going to do that for." He came on two more quick, long strides, thrust his face forward

ndecision by the thunderous voice. Then, before he could recover himself the big man had flung a heavy wet coat into Adams's face, a gun had been fired wildly, the bullet ripping into the ceiling, and Buck Th

were just

a man across the room from him cried out and dropped his own

d to condone the act of old Adams as a bit of senility; the look in his eyes wa

egets murder in men's souls. "But I shot just a shade too quick. Try it again, o

revolver which had come from Hap Smith's holster and more recently from old man Adams's fi

, sports," he said with

to play just go ahea

veral gun barrels and though here were men who were not cowards and who did not lack initiative, to the last man of them they hesitated. As his glance sped here and there it seemed to stab at them like a knife blade. He challenged them and stood quietly waiti

"you explain. Poke Drury, this be

lips. But it was Hap

nowed you to go wrong. But … Well, not an hour ago a man your buil

aid Thorn

thought it was him come back when you come in." His eye met Thornton

, his thumb softly caressing

, is it?" he

," returne

ou decided to do

drop on us like this. Oh, you're twice as quick on the draw as the best two

n who so short a time ago had shot Bert Stone. It did not seem reasonable to Hap Smi

d in a moment, "throw down your gun an'

Thornton. "What

in' out'n your back pocket," said Smith cri

had thus voluntarily returned to the road house, he would be prepared. He would have emptied his pockets, he certain

riding from and why? And maybe you'd like to have me take off my shoes so you can look in them for your lost treasures?" Now was his contempt unhidden. He strode quickly across the room, c

face lifted, looking at him. His gaze was arrested as his eyes met hers. He stood very still, plainly showing the surprise wh

with that intent, openly admiring acknowledgmen

agically it seemed to his startled fancies, there had stepped a superb creature with eyes on fire with her youth, a superlatively lovely creature, essentially feminine. From the flash of her eyes to the curl of her hair, she was all girl. And to Buck Thornton, man's man of the wide open country beyond the mou