He paused, and a heavy silence descended. No man moved. A sneer began to wreathe Harlan's lips--a twisting, mocking, sardonic sneer that expressed his contempt for the men who faced him. "Not havin' any thoughts, eh?" he jeered. "There's some guys that would rather do their fightin' with women, an' their thoughts wouldn't sound right if they put words around them. I ain't detainin' you no longer. Any man who thinks it's time to call for a show-down can do his yappin' right now. Them that's dead certain they're through can mosey along, takin' care not to try any monkey business!" He stood, watching, his wide gaze including them all, until, one after another the men in the group silently moved away. They did not go far. Some of them merely stepped into near-by doorways, others sauntered slowly down the street and halted at a little distance to look back. But no man made a hostile move, for they had seen the tragedy in which Laskar had figured, and they had no desire to provoke Harlan to express again the cold wrath that slumbered in his eyes. Meeder Lawson was the first of Deveny's intimates to leave the group. His face sullen, his eyes venomous, he walked across the street to the First Chance, and stood in the doorway, beside Balleau, who had been an interested onlooker. Then Strom Rogers moved. He wheeled slowly, flashing an inquiring glance at Deveny--who still stood motionless. Deveny had lowered his hands--they were hanging at his sides, the right hand having the palm toward Harlan, giving eloquent testimony of its owner's peaceable intentions. Rogers' glance included the out-turned palm, and his lips curved in a faint smile. The smile held as his glance went to Harlan's face, and for an instant as the eyes of the two men met, appraisal was the emotion that ruled in them. Harlan detected in Rogers' eyes a grim scorn of Deveny, and a malignant satisfaction; Rogers saw in Harlan's eyes a thing that not one of the men who had faced the man had seen--cold humor. Then Rogers was walking away, leaving Deveny to face the man who had disrupted his plans. Deveny had not changed his position, and for an instant following the departure of Rogers, there was no word spoken. Then for the first time since he had dismounted from Purgatory, Harlan's eyes lost their wide, inclusive vacuity. They met Deveny's fairly, with a steady, direct, boring intensity; a light in them that resembled the yellow flame that Deveny had once seen in the eyes of a Mexican jaguar some year before at a camp on the Neuces.