Men seemed unwilling to meet each other’s eyes.  Some of them drummed lightly on the top of the bar and strove to whistle, but the only sound that came through their dried lips was a whispering rush of breath.  A grey-haired cattle ranger commenced to hum a tune, very low, but distinct.  Finally a man rose, strode across the room, shook the old fellow by the shoulder with brutal violence, and with a curse ordered him to stop his “damned death song!”

Everyone drew a long breath of relief.  The minute hand crept on towards three o’clock.  Now it was twenty minutes, now fifteen, now ten, now five; then a clatter of hoofs, a heavy step on the porch, and the giant form of Jim Silent blocked the door.  His hands rested on the butts of his two guns.  Buck guessed at the tremendous strength of that grip.  The eyes of the outlaw darted about the room, and every glance dropped before his, with the exception of Buck’s fascinated stare.

For he saw a brand on the face of the great long rider.  It lay in no one thing.  It was not the unusual hollowness of eyes and cheeks.  It was not the feverish brightness of his glance.  It was something which included all of these.  It was the fear of death by night!  His hands fell away from the guns.  He crossed the room to the bar and nodded his head at the bartender.

“Drink!” he said, and his voice was only a whisper without body of sound.

The bartender, with pasty face, round and blank, did not move either his hand or his fascinated eyes.  There was a twitch of the outlaw’s hand and naked steel gleamed.  Instantly revolvers showed in every hand.  A youngster moaned.  The sound seemed to break the charm.

Silent put back his great head and burst into a deep-throated laughter.  The gun whirled in his hand and the butt crashed heavily on the bar.

“Drink, damn you!” he thundered.  “Step up an’ drink to the health of Jim Silent!”

The wavering line slowly approached the bar.  Silent pulled out his other gun and shoved them both across the bar.

“Take ’em,” he said.  “I don’t want ’em to get restless an’ muss up this joint.”

The bartender took them as if they were covered with some deadly poison, and the outlaw stood unarmed!  It came suddenly to Buck what the whole manoeuvre meant.  He gave away his guns in order to tempt someone to arrest him.  Better the hand of the law than the yellow glare of those following eyes.  Yet not a man moved to apprehend him.  Unarmed he still seemed more dangerous than six common men.

The long rider jerked a whisky bottle upside down over a glass.  Half the contents splashed across the bar.  He turned and faced the crowd, his hand dripping with the spilled liquor.

“Whose liquorin’?” he bellowed.

Not a sound answered him.

“Damn your yaller souls!  Then all by myself I’ll drink to—­”

He stopped short, his eyes wild, his head tilted back.  One by one the cowpunchers gave back, foot by foot, softly, until they stood close to the opposite wall of the saloon.  All the bar was left to Silent.  The whisky glass slipped from his hand and crashed on the floor.  In his face was the meaning of the sound he heard, and now it came to their own ears—­a whistle thin with distance, but clear.