Rowdy murderously. The Come Again would shortly have been filled with the
pungent haze of burned powder, only that the bartender was a man-of-action.
He hated brawls, and it did not matter to him how just might be the quarrel;
he slapped the gaping barrels of a sawed-off shotgun across the bar--and from
the look of it one might imagine many disagreeable things.

"Drop it! Cut it out!" he bellowed. "Yuh ain't going t' make no
slaughter-pen out uh this joint, I tell yuh. Put up them guns or else take
'em outside. If you fellers are hell-bent on smokin' each other up, they's
all kinds uh room outdoors. Git! Vamose! Hike!"

Conroy wheeled and walked, straight-backed and venomous, to the door. "Come
on out, if yuh ain't scared," he sneered. "It's two agin' one and then some,
by the look uh things. But I'll take yuh singly or in bunches. I'm ready for
the whole damn' Cross L bunch uh coyotes. Come on, you white-livered--!"

Rowdy rushed for him, with Pink and the Silent One at his heels. He had
forgotten that Harry Conroy ever had a sister of any sort whatsoever. All he
knew was that Harry had done him much wrong, of the sort which comes near to
being unforgivable, and that he had sneered insults that no man may
overlook. All he thought of was to get his hands on him.

Outside, the dusky stillness made all sounds seem out of place; the faint
starlight made all objects black and unfamiliar. Rowdy stopped, just off the
threshold, blinking at the darkness which held his enemy. It was strange
that he did not find him at his elbow, he thought--and a suspicion came to
him that Harry was lying in wait; it would be like him. He stepped out of
the yellow glare from a window and stood in more friendly shade. Behind him,
on the door-step, stood the other two, blinking as he had done.