mouthed liar."

The words came like little slaps in the face. Of the four men still in
the room with Quinnion three of them moved swiftly to one side, their
eyes on their leader's face, which showed nothing of what might lie in
his mind.

"I have taken the trouble," went on Lee coolly, when Quinnion, leering
back at him, made no reply, "to ride forty miles to-night for a little
talk with you. You are a crook and a card-cheat. I told you that once
before. You have been telling men that I am a coward and a
four-flusher. For that I am going to run you out of town to-night. Or
kill you."

Then Quinnion laughed at him.

"Just for that?" he jeered. "Or because I've been tellin' a true story
about you an'----"

He didn't get her name out. Perhaps he hadn't expected to. His eyes
had been watchful. Now, as he threw himself to one side, he whipped
out his gun, dropping to one knee, his body partly concealed by the
table. At the same second Bud Lee's right hand, no longer lax, sped to
the revolver gripped under the coat at his left arm-pit.

It was a situation by no means new to the four walls of the Jailbird
nor to the men concerned. It was a two-man fight, with as yet no call
for the four friends of Quinnion to interfere. It would take the spit
and snarl of a revolver, the flash of flame, the acrid smell of
burning-powder to switch their sympathetic watching into actual
participation. No new situation certainly for Chris Quinnion who took
quick stock of the table with its heavy top and screened his body with
it; no new situation for Steve, the big bartender who was at the
shattered door almost as Bud Lee sent it rocking drunkenly.

Since a fight like this in a small room may end in three seconds and
yet remain a fight for men to talk of at street corners for many a day
thereafter, it is surely a struggle baffling adequate description. For
while you speak of it, it is done; while a dock ticks, two guns may
carry hot lead, and cut in two two threads of life.

Quinnion was down and shooting, with but ten steps or less between him
and the man whom he sought to kill; Bud Lee was standing, tall and
straight, back to wall, his first bullet ripping into the boards of the
table, sending a flying splinter to stick in Quinnion's face, close to
a squinting, slitted eye; and as the two guns spoke like one, a third
from the open barroom shattered the lamp swinging from the ceiling
between Lee and Quinnion. Steve, the