“P’raps and p’raps not,” still deliberately.  “I ain’t lookin’ fer trouble, mind you, but I just like to have things explicit.  To be dead sure, I’d like to have you repeat it.”

Again there was silence.  In it Bob Manning returned to his place behind the counter; his game leg shuffling behind him as he moved.  In it likewise there was an interruption from without; the subdued clatter of a horse’s feet on the packed earth of the street, the straining of leather, as the man, its rider, alighted, a moment later the click of the door latch as the same man, a stranger if they had noticed, entered and halted abruptly at what he saw.  But those within did not notice.  Silent as the night without, forgetful for the moment of even Pete Sweeney, they were staring at those two actors there before them.

“I’m listening,” repeated Bud Smith gently.  “I ain’t lookin’ fer trouble, you understand; but as fer as I recollect, no feller of my own 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?”