Straight from the room of the dead man, Fatty Matthews had hurried down to the bar, and there he stepped into the silence and found the battery of eyes all turned upon that calm figure at the end of the room.  Upon this man he trotted, breathing hard, and his fat sides jostled up and down as he ran.  According to Brownsville, there were only two things that could make Fatty run:  a gun or the sight of a drink.  But all maxims err.  When he reached Barry he struck him on the shoulder with a heavy hand.  That is, he struck at the shoulder, but as if the shadow of the falling hand carried a warning before it, at the same time that it dropped Barry swerved around in his chair.  Not a hurried movement, but in some mysterious manner his shoulder was not in the way of the plump fist.  It struck, instead, upon the back of the chair, and the marshal cursed bitterly.

“Stranger,” he said hotly, “I got one thing to say:  Jerry Strann has just died upstairs.  In ten seconds Mac Strann will be down here lookin’ for you!”

He stepped back, humming desperately to cover his wheezing, but Barry continued to braid the horsehair with deft fingers.

“I got a double knot that’s kind of new,” he said.  “Want to watch me tie it?”

The deputy sheriff turned on the crowd.

“Boys,” he exclaimed, waving his arms, “he’s crazy.  You heard what he said.  You know I’ve give him fair warning.  If we got to dig his grave in Brownsville, is it my fault?  It ain’t!” He stepped to the bar and pounded upon it.  “O’Brien, for God’s sake, a drink!”

It was a welcome suggestion to the entire nervous crowd, but while the glasses spun across the bar Buck Daniels walked slowly down the length of the barroom towards Barry.  His face was a study which few men could have solved; unless there had been someone present who had seen a man walk to his execution.  Beside Dan Barry he stopped and watched the agile hands at work.  There was a change in the position of Barry now, for he had taken the chair facing the door and the entire crowd; Buck Daniels stood opposite.  The horsehair plied back and forth.  And Daniels noted the hands, lean, tapering like the fingers of a girl of sixteen.  They were perfectly steady; they were the hands of one who had struggled, in life, with no greater foe than ennui.

“Dan,” said Buck, and there was a quiver of excitement in his voice, like the tremor of a piano string long after it has been struck.  “Dan, I been thinking about something and now I’m ready to tell you what it is.”

Barry looked up in slow surprise.

Now the face of Buck Daniels held what men have called a “deadly pallor,” that pallor which comes over one who is cornered and about to fight for his life.  He leaned closer, resting one hand upon the edge of the table, so that his face was close to Dan Barry.

“Barry,” he said, “I’m askin’ you for the last time:  Will you get your hoss and ride back to Kate Cumberland with me?”