Whether the interview had become known along the river did not transpire, but there seemed to be no reason for Miss Mendez to enforce her rules.

It was said that once, when Thompson of Angels was a little too noisy, he had been quietly conducted by his friends from the tienda without the intervention of Jose.

The frequenters of the saloon became its police.
Yet the event--long protracted--came at last! It was a dry, feverish, breezeless afternoon, when the short, echoless explosion of a revolver puffed out on the river, followed by another, delivered so rapidly that they seemed rolled into one.

There was no mistaking that significant repetition.

ONE shot might have been an accident; TWO meant intention.
The men dropped their picks and shovels and ran--ran as they never before ran in Buckeye--ran mechanically, blindly groping at their belts and pockets for the weapons that hung there no longer; ran aimlessly, as to purpose, but following instinctively with hurried breath and quivering nostrils the cruel scent of powder and blood.