While Morgan was closing the door, de Spain smiled at his visitors: "That isn't necessary, Morgan: I'm not ready to run." Morgan only continued to stare at him. "I need hardly ask," added de Spain, "whether you fellows have business with me?" He looked to Sandusky for a reply; it was Logan who answered in shrill falsetto: "No. We don't happen to have business that I know of. A friend of ours may have a little, maybe!" Logan, lifting his shoulders with his laugh, looked toward his companions for an answer to his joke. De Spain's smile appeared unruffled: "You'll help him transact it, I suppose?" Logan, looking again toward Sandusky, grinned: "He won't need any help." "Who is your friend?" demanded de Spain good-naturedly. Logan's glance misled him; it did not refer to Sandusky. And even as he asked the question de Spain heard through the half-open window at the end of the bar the sound of hoofs. Hoping against hope for Lefever, the interruption cheered him. It certainly did not seem that his situation could be made worse. "Well," answered Logan, talking again to his gallery of cronies, "we've got two or three friends that want to see you. They're waiting outside to see what you'll look like in about five minutes--ain't they, Gale?" Some one was moving within the rear room. De Spain felt hope in every footfall he heard, and the mention this time of Morgan's name cleared his plan of battle. Before Gale, with an oath, could blurt out his answer, de Spain had resolved to fight where he stood, taking Logan first and Morgan as he should jump in between the two. It was at the best a hopeless venture against Sandusky's first shot, which de Spain knew was almost sure to reach a vital spot. But desperate men cannot be choosers. "There's no time for seeing me like the present," declared de Spain, ignoring Morgan and addressing his words to Logan. "Bring your friends in. What are you complaining about, Morgan?" he asked, resenting the stream of abuse that Gale hurled at him whenever he could get a word in. "I had my turn at you with a rifle the other day. You've got your turn now. And I call it a pretty soft one, too--don't you, Sandusky?" he demanded suddenly of the big fellow.