cking
back and forth upon a rock, convulsed with silent laughter. Donnegan
looked sternly at the girl and swallowed. He was fearfully susceptible
to mockery.

"There seems to have been a jest?" he said.

But she lifted him a happy, tearful face.

"Ah, thank heaven!" she cried gently.

Oddly enough, Donnegan at this set his teeth and turned upon his heel,
and the girl stole out the door again, and closed it softly behind her.
As a matter of fact, not even the terrible colonel inspired in her quite
the fear which Donnegan instilled.

19

"Big Landis lost his nerve and sidestepped at the last minute, and then
the whole gang faded."

That was the way the rumors of the affair always ended at each
repetition in Lebrun's and Milligan's that night. The Corner had had
many things to talk about during its brief existence, but nothing to
compare with a man who entered a shooting scrape with such a fellow as
Scar-faced Lewis all for the sake of a spray of mint. And the main topic
of conversation was: Did Donnegan aim at the body or the hand of the
bouncer?

On the whole, it was an excellent thing for Milligan's. The place was
fairly well crowded, with a few vacant tables. For everyone wanted to
hear Milligan's version of the affair. He had a short and vigorous one,
trimmed with neat oaths. It was all the girl in the blue calico dress,
according to him. The posse couldn't storm a house with a woman in it or
even conduct a proper lynching in her presence. And no one was able to
smile when Milligan said this. Neither was anyone nervy enough to
question the courage of Landis. It looked strange, that sudden flight of
his, but then, he was a proven man. Everyone remembered the affair of
Lester. It had been a clean-cut fight, and Jack Landis had won cleanly
on his merits.

Nevertheless some of the whispers had not failed to come to the big man,
and his brow was black.

The most terribly heartless and selfish passion of all is shame in a
young man. To repay the sidelong glances which he met on every side,
Jack Landis would have willingly crowded every living soul in The Corner
into one house and touched a match to it. And chiefly because he felt
the injustice of the suspicion. He had no fear of Donnegan.

He had a theory that little men had little souls. Not that he ever
formulated the theory in words, but he vaguely felt it and adhered to
it. He had more fear of one man of six two than a dozen under five ten.
He re