Under His Shirt. Max Brand
feet. Joe, turning to the left and then to the right, was presently lost in a maze from which he issued out into the first and main hall of the museum.
It seemed an interminable space to the revolving doors. Presently he stood outside at the head of the long flight of steps. Now he hurried down and stood on the pavement. There were taxicabs near by. But in the magazine which had diverted him the night before, he had read how criminals are often traced by the taxicabs in which they had ridden. Such a fate should not fall to Joe Daly.
Quickly he turned and started briskly down the avenue, climbed onto a plebian bus at the next stop, and presently was rocking along on the way downtown to his hotel. In spite of himself he could not help but glance back over his shoulder and down the street. He saw, from time to time, half a dozen automobiles, recklessly violating the speed laws and nosing swiftly through the traffic. Any one of these might be filled with the uniformed men from the museum. How many such men—stuffy and antiquated figures—would be required to capture Joe Daly?
He pondered that question with some pride and a stiffening of his lower jaw. In due time he was back at the hotel. Instantly he snatched the breastplate from beneath his coat and flung it on the bed. It was a thick slab, to be sure, and if it were of a particular quality—— He did not pursue this thought. The plate must be tested. There was a loud explosion in the street—a back fire. That gave him his next idea. Instantly he propped the breastplate against the wall op the farther side of the room, with a well-wadded pillow behind it. A breastplate on a human body would not proffer the rigid resistance of a wall. Then he took his stand near the window, so that the sound would not echo through the house, but pass freely into the open air. He drew the revolver which was always with him, leveled it quickly, and fired.
The breastplate shuddered and drew back, as the great forty-five slug struck home. It was a snap shot, but beautifully planted. It had landed in the exact center of the armor. Now he ran forward to see the results of the shot, quivering with anticipation. This was the great moment!
Behold, when he raised the armor, a cruel abrasion in the surface exactly in the center, but the hole did not cut clear through. There was still a solid sheet of steel behind.
Hastily he concealed gun and breastplate, but no one came with inquiries. No doubt those who were near and heard thought it simply another backfire in the street.
"What a cinch," said Joe Daly, "to bump off a gent in this here town and get away with it!"
CHAPTER II.
PETE RIDES TO BATTLE.
WHEN the news of Joe Daly's return was first carried to Pete Burnside, the deputy sheriff did not believe it. And there were good reasons for his incredulity. Through a long life of battle on the Western frontier, he was well-acquainted with what happens to the heart and soul of a man who is once beaten in fight. After the shameful and conclusive beating which Joe Daly had sustained seven months before, Pete Burnside would have sworn that the latter could never return and hold up his head among his old companions.
To be sure, Pete Burnside knew that there are some men who can be beaten in battle, shot down in the midst of the fight by a fair foe, and then arise at a later time and crush the once-victorious enemy. These are phlegmatic fighters—English warriors, so to speak. But there is another kind, the kind to which Joe Daly belonged. These are men whose muscles are set upon hair-trigger nerves. Their movements in a crisis become blindingly swift. The draw of their gun is like the uncurling of the lash when the whip is snapped. In a tenth part of a second, a single terrible explosion of mental and nervous energy, the bullet is fired, the enemy is dropped, the battle is over. Or, if it is maintained, the battle while it lasts is simply a prolongation of that original conflict.
But when such a man is beaten to the draw, he is very apt to lose his nerve. After one defeat he is no account. Joe Daly, as Pete knew, was one of that high-strung type. And the reason that Pete knew so well was because he was himself in the very same category.
He knew that he himself conquered in the same spirit in which Daly fought. There was that resistless union of hysteria of nerves and muscles working together in great flashes of effort. His life, it might be said, was composed of a scattered series of such flashes of effort. Daly's was compased of the same thing. The chief difference was the use to which they put their abilities to paralyze the efforts of ordinary men. Daly was, as Burnside was practically confident, the leading member of a gang which rustled cattle and in other ways defied the law. But Burnside was a deputy sheriff.
So well known were Burnside's ability with a gun and his dauntless courage in the pursuit and destruction of outlaws, that he might have been sheriff in half a dozen counties. But he preferred to hold a more or less roving commission, going here and going there, striking at random, as the occasion moved him, and always acting as an invaluable coadjutor of the law.
Burnside had trailed Joe Daly and his gang until Burnside was on the verge of cornering half a dozen of them. On that occasion Joe himself had turned back to face and destroy the destroyer. And in that memorable encounter Joe had, gone down. The bullet of Burnside had crashed through the shoulder of Joe just a fraction of a second before Joe's own gun had exploded and sent a slug whistling past the head of the deputy sheriff.
But, no matter how close a call it had been, there was never a truer maxim than that a miss is as good as a mile. The burden of victory rested with Pete. He lifted the fallen enemy and carried him to town. On the way he assured Joe that the time had come when Joe must hunt for better camping grounds, and if he returned in that direction, after his recovery, he, Pete Burnside, would make it his duty and his pleasure to call upon him and blow him off the face of the earth. For Pete Burnside was well convinced that Joe was a rustler of cattle, a horse thief, and other things unspeakable. He would never forget the peculiar expression of horror with which Joe had looked up into his face on that day. And in that instant he had known that Daly would never dare to face him again.
He knew that by consulting his own inner man. And, concerning himself, he was calmly confident that no human being could ever beat him if the chances to draw were equal at the start. If they were not, that was another story, and defeat would be no disgrace—would mean nothing except death, perhaps, and death was meaningless compared to the glory of being the greatest and most dreaded man hunter in the mountain ranges. In the meantime he believed that it was impossible for any other human being to possess that flashing speed with a gun and that deadly certainty in action with which he was blessed—a blessing which he cultivated and improved by constant practice. But if the impossible should ever happen—if another should surpass him in speed and precision—what would happen to that perilously finely organized nervous system?
At the thought he shuddered and felt his pride disintegrate. He could feel himself crumble at the prospect. He would sink as low as he had once been high!
Such was the thought of Pete Burnside. And, knowing what he did, it was no wonder that he blinked and then shook his head when it was told to him that Joe Daly was back in town, more insolent than ever and clamorously announcing that he was ready to meet the terrible deputy sheriff whenever that worthy desired a meeting.
The sheriff himself was worried. He could not send for Pete, because there was no charge against Joe. There was only a huge weight of suspicion. Legally speaking the deputy had not had the slightest shadow of a right to command Joe Daly to leave those parts and never to return. But in the eye of the public at large, Pete had every right. And it had been noticed that after the disappearance of Joe Daly the rustling of cattle, the stealing of horses, the occasional holdups through the adjacent hills fell away to nothingness, comparatively speaking.
What could be a more vivid proof that Pete Burnside, as usual, had been right and had solved the problem for the community. They would have voted him a whole flock of gold watches and chains and huge diamond pins. But gifts were not wanted. Pete lived for the pleasure of battle, and he did not wish to be paid for doing his duty. His salary, he often said, represented living expenses, not a reward for service!
And when the distinguished deputy heard