“What you doin’ here?” he demanded.

“Makin’ my party call,” retorted Clay easily.

Jerry cursed him with a low, savage stream of profanity.  The gangman enraged was not a sight pleasing to see.

“I reckon heaven, hell, and high water couldn’t keep you from cussin’ now.  Relieve yore mind proper, Mr. Durand.  Then we’ll talk business,” murmured Clay in the low, easy drawl that never suggested weakness.

The ex-prize-fighter’s flow of language dried up.  He fell silent and stood swallowing his furious rage.  It had come home to him that this narrow-flanked young fellow with the close-gripped jaw and the cool, steady eyes was entirely unmoved by his threats.

“Quite through effervescing?” asked Clay contemptuously.

The gang leader made no answer.  He chose to nurse his venom silently.

“Where’s Kitty Mason?”

Still no answer.

“I asked you what you’ve done with Kitty Mason?”

“What’s that to you?”

“I’m close-herdin’ that li’l’ girl and I’ll not have yore dirty hands touch her.  Where is she?”

“That’s my business.”

“By God, you’ll tell, or I’ll tear it out of you!”

Clay backed to the door, found the key, transferred it to the inner side of the lock, turned it, and put it in his pocket.

The cornered gangman took a chance.  He ducked for the shelter of the desk, tore open a drawer, and snatched out an automatic.

Simultaneously the cowpuncher pressed the button beside the door and plunged the room in darkness.  He side-stepped swiftly and without noise.

A flash of lightning split the blackness.

Clay dropped to his knees and crawled away.  Another bolt, with its accompanying roar, flamed out.

Still the Westerner did not fire in answer, though he knew just where the target for his bullet was.  A plan had come to him.  In the blackness of that room one might empty his revolver and not score a hit.  To wait was to take a chance of being potted, but he did not want the death of even such a ruffian as Durand on his soul.

The crash of the automatic and the rattle of glass filled the room.  Jerry, blazing away at some fancied sound, had shattered the window.

Followed a long silence.  Durand had changed his tactics and was resolved to wait until his enemy grew restless and betrayed himself.

The delay became a test of moral stamina.  Each man knew that death was in that room lying in wait for him.  The touch of a finger might send it flying across the floor.  Upon the mantel a clock ticked maddeningly, the only sound to be heard.

The contest was not one of grit, but of that unflawed nerve which is so much the result of perfect physical fitness.  Clay’s years of clean life on the desert counted heavily now.  He was master of himself, though his mouth was dry as a whisper and there were goose quills on his flesh.