Everyone in the room was grave except Jim Silent and his three companions, who were smiling grimly.

“By God, Jack,” said the first man with ominous softness, “I’ll take a lot from you but when it comes to doubtin’ my word——­”

Morgan, with popping eyes and a very red face, slapped his hand on the bar and vaulted over it with more agility than his plumpness warranted.  He shouldered his way hurriedly through the crowd to the rapidly widening circle around the two disputants.  They stood with their right hands resting with rigid fingers low down on their hips, and their eyes, fixed on each other, forgot the rest of the world.  Morgan burst in between them.

“Look here,” he thundered, “it’s only by way of a favour that I’m lettin’ you boys wear shootin’ irons today because I promised old Cumberland there wouldn’t be no fuss.  If you got troubles there’s enough room for you to settle them out in the hills, but there ain’t none at all in here!”

The gleam went out of their eyes like four candles snuffed by the wind.  Obviously they were both glad to have the tension broken.  Mike wiped his forehead with a rather unsteady hand.

“I ain’t huntin’ for no special brand of trouble,” he said, “but Jack has been ridin’ the red-eye pretty hard and it’s gotten into that dried up bean he calls his brain.”

“Say, partner,” drawled Jack, “I ain’t drunk enough of the hot stuff to make me fall for the line you’ve been handing out.”

He turned to Morgan.

“Mike, here, has been tryin’ to make me believe that he knew a feller who could drill a dollar at twenty yards every time it was tossed up.”

The crowd laughed, Morgan loudest of all.

“Did you anyways have Whistlin’ Dan in mind?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t,” said Mike, “an’ I didn’t say this here man I was talkin’ about could drill them every time.  But he could do it two times out of four.”

“Mike,” said Morgan, and he softened his disbelief with his smile and the good-natured clap on the shoulder, “you sure must of been drinkin’ when you seen him do it.  I allow Whistlin’ Dan could do that an’ more, but he ain’t human with a gun.”

“How d’you know?” asked Jack, “I ain’t ever seen him packin’ a six-gun.”

“Sure you ain’t,” answered Morgan, “but I have, an’ I seen him use it, too.  It was jest sort of by chance I saw it.”

“Well,” argued Mike anxiously, “then you allow it’s possible if Whistlin’ Dan can do it.  An’ I say I seen a chap who could turn the trick.”

“An’ who in hell is this Whistlin’ Dan?” asked Jim Silent.

“He’s the man that caught Satan, an’ rode him,” answered a bystander.

“Some man if he can ride the devil,” laughed Lee Haines.

“I mean the black mustang that ran wild around here for a couple of years.  Some people tell tales about him being a wonder with a gun.  But Morgan’s the only one who claims to have seen him work.”