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.
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