nin'. What you chasin' this girl for?"

The man reddened, looked downward, then up at Deveny. The latter, a pout
on his lips, his eyes glowing savagely, walked to where Harlan stood with
one arm around the girl, while Lawson, Rogers, Gage, and several other
men advanced slowly and stood near him.

CHAPTER VII

SINGLE-HANDED

Noting the concerted movement toward him, Harlan grinned at Barbara,
gently disengaged himself from her grasp, and urged her toward the door
of the sheriff's office. She made no objection, for she felt that further
trouble impended, and she knew she must not impede any action her rescuer
planned.

Reaching the street a few minutes before, she had noted the preparations
for the swift tragedy that had followed; and despite her wild desire to
escape Deveny's man, she had halted, fascinated by the spectacle
presented by the two men, gambling with death.

She had halted at a little distance, crouching against the front of a
building. And while she had been crouching there, trembling with a new
apprehension, her pursuer had caught her.

She had hardly been aware of him, and his grasp on her arm she had not
resisted, so intense was her interest in what was transpiring. But the
sudden ending of the affair brought again into her consciousness the
recollection of her own peril, and when she saw Deveny cross the street
she broke from the man's restraining grasp and ran to Harlan, convinced
that he--because he seemed to be antagonistic toward the forces arrayed
against her--would protect her.

And now, shrinking into the open doorway of the sheriff's office, she
watched breathlessly, with straining senses, the moving figures in the
drama.

Harlan had backed a little way toward the doorway in which Barbara stood.
The movement was strategic, and had been accomplished with deliberation.
He was facing Lamo's population--at least that proportion of it which was
at home--with the comforting assurance that no part of it could get
behind him.

The gun he had drawn upon the approach of Barbara's pursuer was still in
his right hand. It menaced no one, and yet it seemed to menace everyone
within range of it.

For though the gun was held loosely in Harlan's hand, the muzzle
downward, there was a glow in the man's eyes that conveyed a warning.

The smile on his face, too, was pregnant with the promise of violence. It
was a surface smile, penetrating no deeper than his lips, and behind it,
partially m