s the iron was, he could not
control a slight tremor in his voice, not of fear, but of excitement.
"Mr. Christie, I've got something to say to you. Will you step outside
with me?"

Christie measured his interlocutor from head to foot, till Simon felt
himself insulted in every inch of his person. The peace-loving hermit
had time for blood-thirsty thoughts before the answer struck his ear.

"Not much!" came the reply at last, while the speaker gathered up the
cards and began dealing. "If this place is good enough for me, I reckon
it's good enough for a blasted Sissy of your description!"

No one would do Mr. Christie the injustice to suppose that his remark
was unembellished by more forcible expressions than are hereby
recorded. Yet, somehow, the worst of them lacked the sting that Simon
managed to get into his reply, as he said, in a suppressed voice: "This
place ain't good enough, as far's that goes, for the meanest skunk God
ever created! But it'll do for what we've got to settle between us."

"Have a seat, Mister?"

A sick-looking girl, with blazing cheeks, had placed a chair for him.
"Have a----"

The words died on her lips before the solemn, reproachful look the
professor turned upon her.

"And Jinny looked smart
As a cranberry tart!"

sang the discordant voice from the stage, which nobody thought of
listening to.

"It's the Lame Gulch Professor," the black-haired man remarked, taking a
look at his cards, before turning to his glass for refreshment.

"Damn the Lame Gulch Professor!" Christie retorted, by way of
acknowledging the introduction.

Then Simon spoke again.

"Mr. Christie, you've got the prettiest and smartest little girl in Lame
Gulch," he declared, laying down his proposition in a tone of extreme
deliberation; "and you hit her over the head last night, and 't ain't
the first time neither."

"Is that the latest news you've got to give us?" asked Christie, passing
his hand caressingly over his pistol, which lay like a lap-dog on his
knees.

"Better let that alone," said the black-haired gambler, persuasively.
"The professor's ben good to my kids."

The threat was so very covert that the sensitive Christie did not feel
himself called upon to recognize it as such.

"_He_ ain't no target," Christie declared, with unutterable contempt.
"I'd as soon shoot a door-mat!" whereupon he proceeded, in a disengaged
manner, to empty the contents of the black bottle into a glass, flinging