“No fighting back.  Don’t lift your hand.  When you find that you can’t get in, come back here.  Now, ride.”

So George mounted the horse and went.  Straight to Milligan’s he rode and dismounted; and half of The Corner’s scant daytime population came into the street to see the brilliant horseman pass.

Scar-faced Lewis met the big man at the door.  And size meant little to Andy, except an easier target.

“Well, confound my soul,” said Lewis, blocking the way.  “A Negro in Milligan’s?  Get out!”

Big George did not move.

“I been sent, mister,” he said mildly.  “I been sent for enough mint to make a julep.”

“You been sent to the wrong place,” declared Andy, hitching at his cartridge belt.  “Ain’t you seen that sign?”

And he pointed to the one which eliminated colored patrons.

“Signs don’t mean nothin’ to my boss,” said George.

“Who’s he?”

“Donnegan.”

“And who’s Donnegan?”

It puzzled George.  He scratched his head in bewilderment seeking for an explanation.  “Donnegan is—­Donnegan,” he explained.

“I heard Gloster talk about him,” offered someone in the rapidly growing group.  “He’s the gent that rented the two places on the hill.”

“Tell him to come himse’f,” said Andy Lewis.  “We don’t play no favorites at Milligan’s.”

“Mister,” said big George, “I don’t want to bring no trouble on this heah place, but—­don’t make me go back and bring Donnegan.”

Even Andy Lewis was staggered by this assurance.

“Rules is rules,” he finally decided.  “And out you go.”

Big George stepped from the doorway and mounted his horse.

“I call on all you gen’lemen,” he said to the assembled group, “to say that I done tried my best to do this peaceable.  It ain’t me that’s sent for Donnegan; it’s him!”

He rode away, leaving Scar-faced Lewis biting his long mustaches in anxiety.  He was not exactly afraid, but he waited in the suspense which comes before a battle.  Moreover, an audience was gathering.  The word went about as only a rumor of mischief can travel.  New men had gathered.  The few day gamblers tumbled out of Lebrun’s across the street to watch the fun.  The storekeepers were in their doors.  Lebrun himself, withered and dark and yellow of eye, came to watch.  And here and there through the crowd there was a spot of color where the women of the town appeared.  And among others, Nelly Lebrun with Jack Landis beside her.  On the whole it was not a large crowd, but what it lacked in size it made up in intense interest.

For though The Corner had had its share of troubles of fist and gun, most of them were entirely impromptu affairs.  Here was a fight in the offing for which the stage was set, the actors set in full view of a conveniently posted audience, and all the suspense of a curtain rising.  The waiting bore in upon Andy Lewis.  Without a doubt he intended to kill his man neatly and with dispatch, but the possibility of missing before such a crowd as this sent a chill up and down his spine.  If he failed now his name would be a sign for laughter ever after in The Corner.