"The fault is, you're fresh," cried Druel, warming up as de Spain appeared to cool. The line of tipplers backed away from the bar. De Spain, stepping toward the sheriff, raised his hand in a friendly way. "Druel, you're hurting yourself by your talk. Make me your deputy again sometime," he concluded, "and I'll see that Sassoon stays where he is put." "I'll just do that," cried Druel, with a very strong word, and he raised his hand in turn. "Next time you want him locked up, you can take care of him yourself." The sharp crack of a rifle cut off the words; a bullet tore like a lightning-bolt across de Spain's neck, crashed through a mahogany pilaster back of the bar, and embedded itself in the wall. The shot had been aimed from the street for his head. The noisy room instantly hushed. Spectators sat glued to their chairs. White-faced players leaned motionless against the tables. De Spain alone had acted; all that the bartenders could ever remember after the single rifle-shot was seeing his hand go back as he whirled and shot instantly toward the heavy report. He had whipped out his gun and fired sidewise through the window at the sound. That was all. The bartenders breathed and looked again. Men were crowding like mad through the back doors. De Spain, at the cigar case, looked intently into the rainy street, lighted from the corner by a dingy lamp. The four men near him had not stirred, but, startled and alert, the right hand of each covered the butt of a revolver. De Spain moved first. While the pool players jammed the back doors to escape, he spoke to, without looking at, the bartender. "What's the matter with your curtains?" he demanded, sheathing his revolver and pointing with an expletive to the big sheet of plate glass. "Is this the way you build up business for the house?" Those close enough to the window saw that the bare pane had been cut, just above the middle, by two bullet-holes. Curious men examined both fractures when de Spain and Lefever had left the saloon. The first hole was the larger. It had been made by a high-powered rifle; the second was from a bullet of a Colt's revolver; it was remarked as a miracle of gun-play that the two were hardly an inch apart. In the street a few minutes later, de Spain and Lefever encountered Scott, who, with his back hunched up, his cheap black hat pulled well down over his ears, his hands in his trousers pockets and his thin coat collar modestly turned against the drizzling rain, was walking across the parkway from the station. "Sassoon is in town," exclaimed Lefever with certainty after he had told the story. He waited for the Indian's opinion. Scott, looking through the water dripping from the brim of his seasoned derby, gave it in one word. "Was," he amended with a quiet smile. "Let's make sure," insisted Lefever. "Supposing he might be in town yet, Bob, where is he?"