Twenty men promptly sprang to the buckskin's head, but she broke away, and wild with terror, bewildered, blind, insensate, charged into the corner of the barn by the musicians' stand.She brought up against the wall with cruel force and with impact of a sack of stones; her head was cut.She turned and charged again, bull-like, the blood streaming from her forehead.The crowd, shrieking, melted before her rush.An old man was thrown down and trampled.The buckskin trod upon the dragging bridle, somersaulted into a confusion of chairs in one corner, and came down with a terrific clatter in a wild disorder of kicking hoofs and splintered wood.But a crowd of men fell upon her, tugging at the bit, sitting on her head, shouting, gesticulating.For five minutes she struggled and fought; then, by degrees, she recovered herself, drawing great sobbing breaths at long intervals that all but burst the girths, rolling her eyes in bewildered, supplicating fashion, trembling in every muscle, and starting and shrinking now and then like a young girl in hysterics.At last she lay quiet.The men allowed her to struggle to her feet.The saddle was removed and she was led to one of the empty stalls, where she remained the rest of the evening, her head low, her pasterns quivering, turning her head apprehensively from time to time, showing the white of one eye and at long intervals heaving a single prolonged sigh.
And an hour later the dance was progressing as evenly as though nothing in the least extraordinary had occurred.The incident was closed--that abrupt swoop of terror and impending death dropping down there from out the darkness, cutting abruptly athwart the gayety of the moment, come and gone with the swiftness of a thunderclap.Many of the women had gone home, taking their men with them; but the great bulk of the crowd still remained, seeing no reason why the episode should interfere with the evening's enjoyment, resolved to hold the ground for mere bravado, if for nothing else.Delaney would not come back, of that everybody was persuaded, and in case he should, there was not found wanting fully half a hundred young men who would give him a dressing down, by jingo! They had been too surprised to act when Delaney had first appeared, and before they knew where they were at, the buster had cleared out.In another minute, just another second, they would have shown him--yes, sir, by jingo!--ah, you bet!
On all sides the reminiscences began to circulate.At least one man in every three had been involved in a gun fight at some time of his life."Ah, you ought to have seen in Yuba County one time--" "Why, in Butte County in the early days--" "Pshaw! this to-night wasn't anything! Why, once in a saloon in Arizona when I was there--" and so on, over and over again.Osterman solemnly asserted that he had seen a greaser sawn in two in a Nevada sawmill.Old Broderson had witnessed a Vigilante lynching in '55on California Street in San Francisco.Dyke recalled how once in his engineering days he had run over a drunk at a street crossing.Gethings of the San Pablo had taken a shot at a highwayman.Hooven had bayonetted a French Chasseur at Sedan.
An old Spanish-Mexican, a centenarian from Guadalajara, remembered Fremont's stand on a mountain top in San Benito County.The druggist had fired at a burglar trying to break into his store one New Year's eve.Young Vacca had seen a dog shot in Guadalajara.Father Sarria had more than once administered the sacraments to Portuguese desperadoes dying of gunshot wounds.
Even the women recalled terrible scenes.Mrs.Cutter recounted to an interested group how she had seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 1851, when three men were shot, falling in a fusillade of rifle shots, and expiring later upon the floor of her kitchen while she looked on.Mrs.Dyke had been in a stage hold-up, when the shotgun messenger was murdered.Stories by the hundreds went the round of the company.The air was surcharged with blood, dying groans, the reek of powder smoke, the crack of rifles.All the legends of '49, the violent, wild life of the early days, were recalled to view, defiling before them there in an endless procession under the glare of paper lanterns and kerosene lamps.
But the affair had aroused a combative spirit amongst the men of the assembly.Instantly a spirit of aggression, of truculence, swelled up underneath waistcoats and starched shirt bosoms.More than one offender was promptly asked to "step outside." It was like young bucks excited by an encounter of stags, lowering their horns upon the slightest provocation, showing off before the does and fawns.Old quarrels were remembered.One sought laboriously for slights and insults, veiled in ordinary conversation.The sense of personal honour became refined to a delicate, fine point.Upon the slightest pretext there was a haughty drawing up of the figure, a twisting of the lips into a smile of scorn.
Caraher spoke of shooting S.Behrman on sight before the end of the week.Twice it became necessary to separate Hooven and Cutter, renewing their quarrel as to the ownership of the steer.
All at once Minna Hooven's "partner" fell upon the gayly apparelled clerk from Bonneville, pummelling him with his fists, hustling him out of the hall, vociferating that Miss Hooven had been grossly insulted.It took three men to extricate the clerk from his clutches, dazed, gasping, his collar unfastened and sticking up into his face, his eyes staring wildly into the faces of the crowd.
But Annixter, bursting with pride, his chest thrown out, his chin in the air, reigned enthroned in a circle of adulation.He was the Hero.To shake him by the hand was an honour to be struggled for.One clapped him on the back with solemn nods of approval.
