me."

"Twenty-eight, and I've got 'em down in m' book and I can prove it!"

"Make it twenty-nine, and then quit if you want to."

"Maybe I will." Thorn leaned forward a little, a glitter in his smoky
eyes.

Chadron fell back, his face growing pale. His hand was on his weapon,
his eyes noting narrowly every move Thorn made.

"If you ever sling a gun on me, you old devil, it'll be--"

"I ain't a-goin' to sling no gun on you as long as you owe me money.
I ain't a-goin' to cut the bottom out of m' own money-poke, Chad;
you don't need to swivel up in your hide, you ain't marked for
twenty-nine."

"Well, don't throw out any more hints like that; I don't like that
kind of a joke."

"No, I wouldn't touch a hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following
a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible,
face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a
fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and
one of them sheriff fellers might slip up on me."

"What's all this fool gab got to do with business?" Chadron was
impatient; he looked at his watch.

"Well, I'd be purty sure to make a speech from the gallers--I always
intended to--and lay everything open that ever took place between me
and you and the rest of them big fellers. There's a newspaper feller
in Cheyenne that wants to make a book out of m' life, with m' pict're
in the inside of the lid, to be sold when I'm dead. I could git money
for tellin' that feller what I know."

"Go on and tell him then,"--Chadron spoke with a dare in his words,
and derision--"that'll be easy money, and it won't call for any nerve.
But you don't need to be plannin' any speech from the gallus--you'll
never go that fur if you try to double-cross me!"

"I ain't aimin' to double-cross no man, but you can call it that if it
suits you. You can call it whatever you purty damn well care to--I'm
done!"

Chadron made no reply to that. He was pulling on his great gloves,
frowning savagely, as if he meant to close the matter with what he had
said, and go.

"Do I git any money, or don't I?" Thorn asked, sharply.

"When you bring in that wolf's tail."

"I ain't a-goin' to touch that feller, I tell you, Chad. That man
means bad luck to me--I can read it in the cards."

"Maybe you call that kind of skulkin' livin' up to your big name?"
Chadron spoke in derision, playing on the vanity which he knew to be
as much a part of that old murderer's life a