For a moment likewise Sweeney did not stir.  For a second his slow brain failed to grasp the truth, the deliberate challenge of the refusal; then of a sudden, in a blinding, maddening flood, came comprehension, came action.  Swifter than any human being would have thought possible, unbelievably ferocious even in this land of licence, something took place, something which the staring onlookers did not realise until it was done.  They only knew that with a mighty backward leap the cowman had reached the single heavy oak door, had sent it shut with a bang.  That at the same time there was the vicious spit of a great revolver, that the odour of burnt gunpowder was in their nostrils, that lifting slowly toward the ceiling was a cloud of thin blue smoke; a curtain that once raised made them shudder, made their blood run cold, for it revealed there, stretched on the floor, huddled as it had dropped, lifeless, motionless, the figure of the man who had refused, the weazened face of Land Man Bud Smith!  All this they realised in that first second; then something that was almost fascination drew away their eyes to the man who had done this deed, to the man who, his back to the great door, the only means of egress, was covering them, every soul, with the two great revolvers in his hands.  For Pete Sweeney was not drunk now.  As swiftly as that horrible thing had been done he had gone sober.  Yet no man who saw him that instant feared him one whit less.  Not a man present, believer or scoffer, but breathed a silent prayer.  And there was reason.  If Pete Sweeney, Long Pete, had possessed a real friend on earth, he possessed that one no more.  Disciples he had, imitators a-plenty; but friends—­there had been but one, and now there was none.  In an instant of oblivion, of drunken frenzy, he had murdered that friend; murdered him without a chance for self-defence, fair in his tracks.  Not another had done this thing but he himself, he, Cowman Pete.  Small wonder that they who watched this man prayed, that surreptitious glances sought for an avenue of escape where there was none, that the face of Walt Wagner went whiter and whiter; for as certain as Bud Smith lay dead there upon the floor, there would be a reckoning,—­and what that reckoning would be God alone could tell!

And Sweeney himself.  After that first, all but involuntary movement, he had not stirred.  In his hands the big revolvers did not waver the breadth of a hair.  Out of bloodshot, terrible eyes he was looking at that mute figure on the floor; looking at it immovably, indescribably, with an impassivity that was horrible.  For the moment he seemed to have forgotten the others’ presence, seemed at their mercy; and to the mind of Walt Wagner there came a suggestion.  Slowly, surreptitiously one hand came out of his pocket, advanced by the fractions of inches towards his hip; advanced and halted and advanced again, reached almost—­almost—.

“That’ll do, you!” It was not a voice that spoke, it was a snarl:  the snarl of an angry animal.  “Put that fist back in your breeches or by God—­”