I, like the rest, was
held fast. But I kept my eyes sweeping around, then back again to that
center pair.
"Blome slowly rose. I think he did it instinctively. Because if he had
expected his first movement to start the action he never would have
moved. Snecker sat partly on the rail of his chair, with both feet
square on the floor, and he never twitched a muscle. There was a
striking difference in the looks of these two rustlers. Snecker had
burning holes for eyes in his white face. At the last he was staunch,
defiant, game to the core. He didn't think. But Blome faced death and
knew it. It was infinitely more than the facing of foes, the taking of
stock, preliminary to the even break. Blome's attitude was that of a
trapped wolf about to start into savage action; nevertheless, equally it
was the pitifully weak stand of a ruffian against ruthless and powerful
law.
"The border of Pecos County could have had no greater lesson than
this--Blome face-to-face with the Ranger. That part of the border
present saw its most noted exponent of lawlessness a coward, almost
powerless to go for his gun, fatally sure of his own doom.
"But that moment, seeming so long, really so short, had to end.
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