Enright, his face like chalk, got to
his knees and crept across the floor until his hand closed on
Westcott's revolver. Lifting himself by a grip on the desk, he swung
the weapon forward at the very instant the miner rose staggering,
dragging Beaton with him. There was a flash of flame, a sharp report,
and Westcott sprang aside, gripping the back of a chair. The gunman
sank into shapelessness on the floor as the chair hurtled through the
air straight at Enright's head.
With a crash the door fell, and a black mass of men surged in through
the opening, the big bartender leading them, an axe in his hand.
Beaton lay motionless just as he had dropped; Enright was in one
corner, dazed, unnerved, a red gash across his forehead, from which
blood dripped, the revolver, struck from his fingers, yet smoking on
the floor; Westcott, his clothes torn, his face bruised by blows,
breathing heavily, went slowly backward, step by step, to the farther
wall, conscious of nothing now but the savagely hostile faces of these
new enemies. Lacy, staggering as though drunk, managed to attain his
feet, hate, the desire for revenge, yielding him strength.
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