“What’s happened?” he demanded of one of the men.

“Rukus,” shortly replied one.  “Hamlin, here, tried to draw on Slade, an’ Slade——­”

“Slade!”

Shorty almost screamed the words.  He straightened, his face grew convulsed.  Pausing on the verge of violent action, he heard Hamlin’s voice: 

“Shorty!”

Shorty leaned over.  Straining, his muscles working, his eyes blazing, Shorty heard low words issuing from Hamlin’s lips: 

“Slade done it, Shorty.  An’ he’s got Ruth—­took her upstairs.  Shorty—­save her—­for God’s sake!”

Shorty straightened.  “Take this man to the doctor—­he’s hit bad!” The words were flung at the four men; and Shorty was on the move before he finished.

Blackburn and the others were close behind him when he burst into the front door of the saloon.

The saloon occupied the entire lower floor.  A bar ran the length of the room from front to rear.  In the center of the room was a roulette wheel; near it was a faro table; and scattered in various places were other tables.  Some oil-lamps in clusters provided light for the card and gambling tables; and behind the bar were several bracket lamps.

There were perhaps a score of men in the room when Shorty and the Circle L men burst in.  Shorty had come to a halt in the glare of one of the big clusters of lights, and his friends had halted near him.

The giant made a picture that brought an awed hush over the place.  He stood in the glaring light, a gun in each hand, the muscles of his face and neck standing out like whipcords; his legs a-sprawl, his eyes blazing with awful rage as they roved around the room, scanning the faces of every man there.  The other Circle L men had drawn their weapons, too.  But Shorty dominated.  It was upon him that all eyes turned; it was upon his crimson, rage-lined face that every man looked.  He was a figure of gigantic proportions—­a mighty man in the grip of the blood-lust.

“You guys stand.  Every damned one of you!  Don’t move a finger or bat an eyelash!  I’ve come a-killin’!” he said in a low, tense voice, the words coming with a snap, jerkily, like the separate and distinct lashes of a whip.

Not a man in the room moved, nor did their fascinated eyes waver for an instant from Shorty’s face.

“Where’s Slade?”

He shot the words at them.  He saw their eyes waver for an instant from his and they looked toward the stairs in the rear—­the stairs that Ruth Hamlin had seen when for an instant after throwing the door of the room open she had glanced down to see the room full of men, all looking at her.

The concentrated gazing of the men at the stairs told Shorty what he wanted to know.  He spoke to Blackburn, throwing the words back over his shoulder: 

“Hold ’em right where they are—­damn ’em!”

Then with a few gigantic bounds he was at the foot of the stairs.  In a few more he had gained the top, where he pressed his huge shoulder against the door.  It gave a little—­enough to further enrage the giant.  He drew back a little and literally hurled himself against it.  It burst open, Shorty keeping his feet as the wreck fell away from him.  And he saw Slade, with a hand over Ruth’s mouth, standing near the foot of the bed.