The restaurant owner brought Dozier's order, and then
the coffee and the cigar to Andrew, and while the deputy
continued to look with dumb fascination at Andrew with
swift side glances, Andrew finished his second cup. He
bit off the end of his cigar, asked for his check, and paid
it, and then felt his nerves crumble and go to pieces.
It was not Hal Dozier who sat there, but death itself that looked him in the face. One false move, one wrong gesture, would betray him. How could he tell? That very moment his expression might have altered into something which the marshal could not fail to recognize, and the moment that final touch came there would be a gun play swifter than the eye could follow—simply a flash of steel and a simultaneous explosion.
Even now, with the cigar between his teeth, he knew that if he lighted a match the match would tremble between his fingers, and that trembling would betray him to Dozier. Was he wrong? Was there not even now a tightening of the jaw muscles of the marshal, a clearing and narrowing of his eyes, such as preceded action?
Yet he must not sit there, either, with the cigar between his teeth, unlighted. It was a little thing, but the weight of a feather would turn the balance and loose on him the thunderbolt of Hal Dozier in action.
But what could he do?
He found a thing in the very deeps of his despair. He got up from his chair, pushed his hat calmly upon his head—though that surely must complete Dozier's picture—and walked straight to the deputy. He dropped both hands upon the edge of Hal's table and leaned across it.
"Got a light, partner?" he asked.
And standing there over the table, he knew that Dozier had at length finally and definitely recognized him; but
