Schroeder busied himself asking if anybody had seen Calhoun come in, or hiding in the Billiard Parlor or anything. The Billiard Parlor didn’t open till eleven o’clock, except Sundays, but Sam Brown told him the corral door was open sometimes in the mornings. Nobody had seen Calhoun at all, which didn’t particularly mean anything as far as he, Schroeder, was concerned; because the fact was that Calhoun had been in the Billiard Parlor to try to dry-gulch Blaisedell, and it didn’t have to be proved how he had got in there.

Maybe Billy Gannon and the rest of them hadn’t known about Calhoun being there in the Billiard Parlor; he didn’t see that it made any difference. For it was all McQuown’s doing, any man could tell that.

VII

(From the testimony of Lucas Friendly, cowboy.)

Lucas Friendly had come into town with William Gannon, Thaddeus Benner, and Edward Calhoun, to protest to Marshal Clay Blaisedell that they had been unfairly and illegally posted from Warlock.

They had not come in to make trouble. They had only wanted to reason with the marshal. There had been no cause for posting them out of Warlock, which everybody knew was illegal anyway, except that some people had got down on them and their friends. They had heard that the marshal was a reasonable man, and had felt they could convince him that they had had no part in the stage robbery of which they had been so foully accused, and justly acquitted by a Bright’s City jury. There had been some talk among them on the way up that their entrance into Warlock might be dangerous, but they had felt they had to talk it over with the marshal man to man.

Calhoun’s horse had gone lame just before they reached Warlock, so the rest of them had got into town ahead of him. They told Nate Bush to go for the marshal and ask him to come to the Acme Corral so they could talk. They had not wanted to go abroad in Warlock, fearing trouble with certain townsmen who were unjustly set against them, and edgy toward them.

Calhoun had arrived while Bush was gone. They waited a long time, but the marshal did not appear, so, fearing that Bush had gone astray, Calhoun had gone into the Billiard Parlor to try to find someone there to send for the marshal.

But just then the marshal came down Southend Street. When they saw Morgan with him they knew it looked bad, and he, Lucas Friendly, was sick to see the marshal with that high-roller and both clearly coming after trouble.

Both he and Billy Gannon tried to reason with Blaisedell, but the marshal only shouted at them to go for their guns, and called them foul names.

Billy was a hot-headed boy, and Friendly was afraid that he and Benner would not stand for being called names like that. He had cautioned them to hold steady, while he tried to argue with the marshal some more. But he could see it was no use, and that the marshal and Morgan had murder in their hearts. Morgan began to curse them for being yellow — trying to get them to draw so it would be on them for starting the trouble.

Unluckily it was just then that Calhoun came back out of the Billiard Parlor, and right away Morgan started shooting, and Blaisedell drew and shot at Billy and Pony Benner. Billy and Pony started shooting back, but Blaisedell and Morgan had got first draw and shot them down as they had already shot Calhoun.

He, Friendly, kept yelling at Blaisedell that they had not come to make trouble, and trying to stop the shooting. But it was too late. They had killed the others by then, and he could not draw himself for both Blaisedell and Morgan had their six-shooters aimed at him. So he ran for his horse because he could see they were going to shoot him down whatever he did. He heard them arguing behind him which one was going to shoot him. Luckily for him, a lot of people came down Southend Street toward the corral just then, thinking the shooting was over, and the marshal could not backshoot him for all these others to see it.

There had been nothing for him to do but jump his horse and ride for his life. They would have found some way to kill him if he hadn’t.

He thought they would find some way to kill him yet. He had heard that both of them had sworn to do it. He knew they would try to shoot him down in cold blood as they had three fine young fellows with nothing in the world against them except that they had somehow got the marshal of Warlock down on them.

22. MORGAN SEES IT PASS

MORGAN sat at the table in the front corner of the Glass Slipper that was always reserved for Clay and himself. What the Professor had called a “runkus” was in full bloom. The barkeepers were hustling whisky and beer and the conversation along the bar was shrill and reverberating; men called to each other over the heads of those around them, contended for attention, showed hands shaped into six-shooters in illustration, gesticulated with vehemence; in the mirrors behind the bar their eyes were bright and their faces excited. They were hashing over the fight in the Acme Corral. He could hear his own name coupled with Clay’s, and the names of the cowboys, repeated and repeated.

Three men came in together. “Morgan,” each said, in turn, and nodded to him, friendly and respectful. “That was a good piece of shooting, Morgan,” one said. He nodded in reply, and grinned at himself that he should enjoy this. Others came in, and each one had a greeting for him.

“Put two in Calhoun about a finger apart and from clean across the street, I heard,” someone said at the bar. Laughter wrenched at him that he should be a hero to them now. They were jackasses and schoolboys; either they saw that the men who had been killed might have been themselves, which made their own miserable lives more precious and engendered gratitude for the increase of value, or else they imagined themselves doing the shooting — and killing made a fellow quite a man, it made his whisky taste better and gave him a brag with the tommies at the French Palace.

Buck Slavin entered and approached him, with a hand out and his jaw shot out grimly; he was one of the second kind. “Morgan,” Slavin said. “This town ought to thank you and the marshal. I thank you.”

He shook the proffered hand, without rising. “I thank you for thanking me, Buck. But it was nothing.”

“That was fine shooting.”

“I was lucky, Buck,” he said, solemnly, and shot his jaw out too.

Slavin clapped him on the shoulder and swaggered over to the bar. Morgan laughed to himself, as much at himself as at Slavin and the rest. Oh, I am lucky by trade, he thought. More men came in and congratulated him, and he folded his arms on his chest and looked stern, or grinned boyishly, and tried to keep his contempt from showing, the better to enjoy it. Someone sent over a bottle of whisky, which he raised in thanks.

“It will pass,” he said to himself, as he poured a little whisky into his glass. He listened to his name coupled with Clay’s, proud with the old pride of being counted with Clay. But it would pass. All things would pass, even the passing itself. But for once the pleasure and excitement drowned the sourness in him, and he was very pleased that it had worked so well for Clay. They would produce a brass band for Clay if they would send him a bottle of whisky.

“Billy was the wrong man, though.” He heard it, sharp-edged, from the bar. He did not even look to see who had said it, for immediately frozen in his mind’s eye was the deeply etched track that led from Bob Cletus to Pat Cletus, from Pat Cletus to Billy Gannon. But it was all right, he reassured himself, so long as Clay did not see the track, see the wrong man again, see him, Tom Morgan— Yet abruptly his mood was broken. All things passed, he thought, except for that one thing.