Interrupting suddenly a muffled sound like the distant exhaust of a big engine--the meeting of a heavy boot with an obstacle on the floor. "Get up!"
A very mountain of human brawn resolved itself upward; a hand on its hips; a curse on its lips.
"You damned lantern-faced--" No hiccough now, but a pause from pure physical impotence, pending a doubtful struggle against a half-dozen men.
"Order, gentlemen!" demanded the bar-keeper, adding emphasis by hammering a heavy bottle on the bar.
"Let him go," commanded Ichabod very quietly; but they all heard through the confusion. "Let him go."
The country was by no means the wild West of the story-papers, but it was primitive, and no man thought, then, of preventing the obviously inevitable.
Ichabod held up his hand, suggestively, imperatively, and the crowd fell back, silent,--leaving him facing the big man.
"You'll apologize!" The thin jaw showed clear, through the shade of brown stubble on Ichabod's face.
For answer, the big man leaning on the bar exhibited his discolored teeth and breathed hard.
A grimy hand twitched toward a grimier hip.
"We're not advertising patent medicine," blazed Ichabod, and the lamps were lit immediately.
Once more the long-visaged man appealed to the group lined up now against the bar.
"Gentlemen--I never carried a revolver a half-hour in my life. Is it any more than fair that I name the details?"
"Name 'm and be quick," acquiesced his big opponent before the others could speak.
"Thanks, Mr. Duggin," with equal swiftness. "These, then, are the conditions." For three seconds, that seemed a minute, Ichabod looked steadily between his adversary's bushy eyebrows. "The conditions," he repeated, "are, that starting from opposite ends of the room, we don't fire until our toes touch in the middle line."
"Good!" commended a voice; but it was not big Duggin who spoke.
"I'll see that it's done, too,"--added a listening cattleman, grasping Ichabod by the hand.
The building had been designed as a bowling-alley and was built the entire length of the lot. With an alacrity born of experience, the long space opposite the bar was cleared, and the belligerents stationed one at either end, their faces toward the wall. Midway between them a heavy line had been drawn with chalk, and beside it stood a half-dozen grim men, their hands resting suggestively on their hips. The room was again very quiet, and from out-of-doors penetrated the shrill sound of a schoolboy whistling "Annie Laurie" with original variations. So exotic seemed the entire scene in its prairie setting, that it might have been transferred bodily from the stage of a distant theatre and set down here,--by mistake.