Carson, though he stooped for it quickly, did not shift his watchful eyes from Trevors. For Carson had known more fights in his life than he had years; he knew men, and looked to Trevor for just the sort of thing Trevors did.
As Lee stepped forward, Trevors snatched open the drawer of the table at his side, quick as light, and whipped out the weapon which lay there.
"Go slow, Trevors!" came old Carson's dry voice. "I've got you covered already, two-gun style."
Trevors, even with his finger crooking to the trigger, paused and saw the two guns in Carson's brown hands trained unwaveringly upon him. There was much deadly determination in Carson's eyes. Again Trevors laughed, drawing back his empty hand.
"You yellow dog!" grunted Bud Lee, his tone one of supreme disgust. "You damned yellow dog!"
"You see, gentlemen--two to one, with the odds all theirs."
"You lie!" spat out Carson. "It's one to one an' I see the game goes square." He stepped forward, removed the weapon from the table under Trevors's now suddenly changeful eyes, and went back to his place with his back to the wall.
"For God's sake!" cried the one nervous man in the room, he who had opened the door. "This is murder!"
Melvin smiled, a smile as cheerless as the gleam of wintry starlight on a bit of glass.
"Will you fight him, Trevors?" he asked. "With your hands?"
"Move back the table," commanded Melvin, on his feet in an instant. "And the chairs. Get them back."
The table was dragged to the far end of the room; the chairs were piled upon it.
"Now," and Melvin's watch was in his hand, his voice coming with metallic coldness, "it's to a finish, is it? Three-minute rounds, fair fighting, no----"
But now at last Bayne Trevors's blood was up, his slow anger had kindled, he was moving his feet restlessly.
"Damn it," he shouted, "whose fight is this but mine and Lee's? If he wants a fight, let him come and get it; a man's fight and rules and rounds and time be damned! Am I to dance around here and sidestep and fence just for you to look on? . . . Carson!"
"Lee challenges me, doesn't he? Then I'm the man to name the sort of fight, am I not? Is that fair?"
"Meaning that I am going to get him, get him any way I can! You let us fight this out our way, any way, and no interference!"