age ever called me coward. If you think so, I'd like to hear you say it.
I'm listenin' fer you to say it now, Walt Wagner."

Again within the room there was silence, and again from without there
approached an interruption. From up the street, from out the door of Red
Jenkins's joint it came; the patter, patter of many feet, leading it the
heavy clump of mighty cowhide boots on the cottonwood sidewalk, the
jingle of spurs on those same boots at every step, the deep breathing of
a cowman intoxicated at last. Down the walk they came, past the darkened
doorways of the deserted shops; wordless, menacing, nearer and nearer.
Within the tiny storeroom no one had spoken, no one had noticed. The
arms of Walt Wagner were not on the showcase now. In the depths of his
pockets they were fumbling again, aimlessly, nervously. His face had
gone whiter than before. Once he had opened his lips to speak, revealing
the blackness of the vacant tooth; but he had closed them again
silently. Now at last he cleared his throat, involuntarily he drew in a
long breath. Whether he was about to speak they who watched never knew.
What if he had spoken he would have said they likewise never knew; for
at that moment, interrupting, compelling, the door to the street swung
open with a crash, and fair in the aperture, filling it, blocking it,
appeared the mighty, muscular figure of a cowman, while upon their ears,
like the menacing bellow of an enraged bull, burst a voice--the
challenging, bullying voice of Pete Sweeney, inebriate.

"What the hell be you fellers doin' here?" And when there was no answer
repeated, "What the hell be you doin', I say?"

For a space that dragged into a half minute there was inaction while
every man within sound of his voice gazed at the speaker; at first
almost with fascination, then as the real meaning of the interruption
came over them, with sensations as divergent as their various individual
minds. There was no need to tell them who looked at that towering,
intruding figure that tragedy lurked in the air, that death on the
slightest provocation, at the twitch of a trigger finger, dwelt in
those big twin Colts lying menacingly across the folded arms. A lunatic
escaped was a pleasant companion, a child, to deal with, compared with
Pete Sweeney at this time. Malevolent, irresponsible, dare god--bull
mastery fairly oozed from his presence. Bad every inch of him,
hopelessly, irredeemably bad was this mountain of humanity. Bad