Laramie Holds the Range

  CHAPTER X

  LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE

  There was not a chance of escape. Laramie's left arm was resting onthe bar. Under the overhang, Stone, as he faced Laramie, now pressedthe gun with his right arm, into Laramie's stomach. For Laramie toattempt to knock it away with his own right hand would be to take analmost certainly fatal chance; while for any friend of his to touchStone or shoot him would mean certain death to Laramie. Feeling thathe had his enemy dead to rights, Stone baited him:

  "Laramie," he began, fixing his eyes on those of his victim, "there'ssome men's lived in this country too long."

  The words carried the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone'sacquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with theeffort to reply: "Tom," he declared, with just enough of hesitation toplay the game, "that's the first thing my wife said yes'day morning."

  Stone stared: "When," he demanded, "did you get married?"

  "Put up your gun. I'll tell you about it."

  Stone only grinned: "I can hear pretty well, right now."

  "If you want to see her picture, Tom, uncock your gun."

  "Not a little bit. I've got you right."

  Laramie smiled: "Sure, Tom, but there's plenty of time; put down thehammer." Stone, without moving his gun, did silently lower the hammer.Laramie counted one. Then he began to describe his trick bride. Stonecut him off. He cocked his gun again: "Show me her picture," hesnarled.

  Tenison took the instant to lean impressively across the bar. Hepointed a long finger at Stone: "Tom," he said, with measured emphasis,"no man can pull a gun here tonight and get away with it. That'll beenough."

  Stone scowled: "Harry, this scout is through; nobody wants him anylonger in this country," he said.

  "Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight--this is my celebration--doyou get me, Tom?"

  Under the implied threat of the determined gambler the hammer ofStone's gun came down: "I c'n get along with any man that'll do what'sright," asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. "Laramie won't."

  "Why, Tom!" expostulated Laramie, reproachfully.

  The revolver clicked; the hammer was up again.

  "Y' won't do what's right, will y', Laramie?" demanded Stone thickly.

  There were probably fifty men in the room. As if by instinct each ofthem already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hawk,the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, upthe bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberateword. Glasses, half-emptied, had been set noiselessly down,discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men and every earstrained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others thattried to pass through the swinging front-door screen into the streetfound a crowd already peering intently in through the open baize.

  "Tom," resumed Laramie, in measured seriousness, "it's not you 'n' mecan't get on--it's men here has made trouble 'tween you and me, Tom.You 'n' me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket atweenus--didn't we, Tom?" he demanded in loud tones.

  Stone, in drunken irresolution, uncocked his gun but held it steady."That's all right, Laramie," he growled.

  "Did we quarrel then?" demanded Laramie, boisterously. "I'm askingyou, Tom, did you 'n' me quarrel then?"

  "When a man can't turn in with Harry Van Horn an' Barb Doubleday,"grumbled Stone, "it's time for him to quit this country." His revolverclicked again; the hammer went up.

  Laramie regarded him with sobering amazement: "Who told you I wouldn'tturn in with Barb Doubleday?" he exclaimed loudly. "Who told you that?"

  "Harry Van Horn told me."

  Tenison tried to interpose. "You shut up, Tenison," was the answeringgrowl from Stone. But Tenison stuck to it till the hammer came down.It was only for a moment--the next instant a score of breathless menheard the click of the gun as it was cocked again.

  "Why," demanded Laramie, more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-facedand tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, andstill fighting for a forlorn chance, "why didn't Harry Van Horn tell meto turn in with a friend--why didn't he tell me to turn in with you,Tom Stone--with a man I rode and bunked with? Why did they make youtheir scapegoat, Tom? You've got me all right; I know that. But whatabout you? You can't get ten feet. Abe Hawk's right back of you,waitin' for you now. They'd dump us into the same hole, Tom. Youdon't want to go into the same hole with me, do you? Let's talk itover."

  The rambling plea sounded so reasonable it won a brief reprieve fromStone.

  "Don't uncock your gun till I'm through, Tom," urged Laramie. "I don'twant to take any advantage at all of an old pardner. Keep it cockedbut listen.

  "I don't want to talk with Van Horn," Laramie went on, "not even withBarb Doubleday, fine a man as he might be--I ain't 'a' sayin', Tom.But I don't want to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Just you andme, Tom--talkin' it over together. Don't be goat for nobody, Tom.What?"

  The drunken foreman's brow contracted in irresolute perplexity: "Whatdo you say?" urged Laramie. Vacillating, Stone let down the hammer totalk it over. It went up again almost instantly. There may in thatlast brief instant have flashed across his muddled consciousness arealization of his fatal mistake; perhaps he saw in the wicked flash ofLaramie's glazed eyes a warning of blunder.

  Knowing that mountain men carry only five cartridges in theirrevolvers, leaving the hammer for safety on an empty chamber, Laramiehad parleyed with Stone only long enough to suit his own purpose. Hisright arm shot out at Stone's jaw. As his fist reached it, the gunagainst his stomach snapped viciously. But the hammer, already raisedsix times, came down on the sixth and empty chamber. It was the chanceLaramie had played for. Stone sank like an ox. As he went down hishead struck the foot-rail. He lay stunned.

  Men drew long breaths. McAlpin, stooping in a flash, wrenched Stone'srevolver from his hand and with a grin, laid it on the bar. Laramie,watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on therail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off theprostrate man he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering overin amazement at the fallen foreman:

  "It seems to take you a good while, Luke," protested Laramie, mildly,"to open that bottle."