"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!"
But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never before received in all his checkered career.
"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five minutes you'll be hanging from the other side."
For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, Mick Kennedy."
There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices sounded in his ears.
"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one.
"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!"
The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His blue eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense.
"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let the law take its course!"