“Liar!” Beaudry heard a chill voice say and knew it was his own.  “Liar on both counts!  My father sent you up because you were a thief.  I beat your head off because you are a bully.  Listen!” Roy shot the last word out in crescendo to forestall the result of a convulsive movement of the hand beneath his enemy’s coat. “Listen, if you want to live the day out, you yellow coyote!”

Beaudry had scored his first point—­to gain time for his argument to get home to the sodden brain.  Dave Dingwell had told him that most men were afraid of something, though some hid it better than others; and he had added that Dan Meldrum had the murderer’s dread lest vengeance overtake him unexpectedly.  Roy knew now that his partner had spoken the true word.  At that last stinging sentence, alarm had jumped to the blear eyes of the former convict.

“Whadjamean?” demanded Meldrum thickly, the menace of horrible things in his voice.

“Mean?  Why, this.  You came here to kill me, but you haven’t the nerve to do it.  You’ve reached the end of your rope, Dan Meldrum.  You’re a killer, but you’ll never kill again.  Murder me, and the law would hang you high as Haman—­if it ever got a chance.”

The provisional clause came out with a little pause between each word to stress the meaning.  The drunken man caught at it to spur his rage.

“Hmp!  Mean you’re man enough to beat the law to it?”

Beaudry managed to get out a derisive laugh.  “Oh, no!  Not when I have a suitcase in my right hand and you have the drop on me.  I can’t help myself—­and twenty men see it.”

“Think they’ll help you?” Meldrum swept his hand toward the frightened loungers and railroad officials.  His revolver was out in the open now.  He let its barrel waver in a semi-circle of defiance.

“No.  They won’t help me, but they’ll hang you.  There’s no hole where you can hide that they won’t find you.  Before night you’ll be swinging underneath the big live-oak on the plaza.  That’s a prophecy for you to swallow, you four-flushing bully.”

It went home like an arrow.  The furtive eyes of the killer slid sideways to question this public which had scattered so promptly to save itself.  Would the mob turn on him later and destroy him?

Young Beaudry’s voice flowed on.  “Even if you reached the hills, you would be doomed.  Tighe can’t save you—­and he wouldn’t try.  Rutherford would wash his hands of you.  They’ll drag you back from your hole.”

The prediction rang a bell in Meldrum’s craven soul.  Again he sought reassurance from those about him and found none.  In their place he knew that he would revenge himself for present humiliation by cruelty later.  He was checkmated.

It was an odd psychological effect of Beaudry’s hollow defiance that confidence flowed in upon him as that of Meldrum ebbed.  The chill drench of fear had lifted from his heart.  It came to him that his enemy lacked the courage to kill.  Safety lay in acting upon this assumption.