to Terry.

"Pete!" he called. "Come in!"

But Denver, alias Shorty, alias Pete, merely laughed.

"Come in nothing, you fool! Joe, you're about half a second from hell,
and so's a couple more of you. D'you know who the kid is? Eh? I'll tell
you, boys. It's the kid that dropped old Minter. It's the kid that beat
foxy Joe Minter to the draw. It's young Hollis. Why, you damned blind
men, look at his face! It's the son of Black Jack. It's Black Jack
himself come back to us!"

Joe Pollard had let his hand fall away from his gun. He gaped at Terry as
though he were seeing a ghost. He came a long pace nearer and let his
arms fall on the table, where they supported his weight.

"Black Jack," he kept whispering. "Black Jack! God above, are you Black
Jack's son?"

And the bewildered Terry answered:

"I'm his son. Whatever you think, and be damned to you all! I'm his son
and I'm proud of it. Now get your gun!"

But Joe Pollard became a great catapult that shot across the table and
landed beside Terry. Two vast hands swallowed the hands of the younger
man and crushed them to numbness.

"Proud of it? God a'mighty, boy, why wouldn't you be? Black Jack's son!