et.

But Gilmore pushed him back into his chair.

"What else did you talk about besides your old woman?" asked the
gambler, after an oppressive silence in which Montgomery heard only the
thump of his heart against his ribs.

"I told him you'd always been like a father to me--" said the handy-man,
ready to weep.

"I'm obliged to you for that!" replied Gilmore with a smile of grim
humor.

"He said he always knowed it," added Montgomery, misled by the smile.

"Well, what else?" questioned Gilmore.

"Why, I reckon that was about all!" said Joe, who had ventured as far
afield into the realms of fancy as his drunken faculties would allow.

"You're sure about that?"

"I hope I may die--"

"And the judge says you're to go home?"

"Say, Shrimp took my old woman there, and she cried and bellered and
carried on awful! She loves me, boss--the judge says I'm to go home to
her to-night or he'll have me pinched. He says that you and Marsh ain't
to keep me here no longer!"

His voice rose into a wail, for blind terror was laying hold of him.
There was something, a look on Gilmore's handsome cruel face, he did not
understand but which filled him with miserable foreboding.

"What's that, about Marsh and me keeping you here?" inquired Gilmore.

"You got to leave me loose--"

"So you told him that?"

"I had to tell him somethin'. My old woman made an awful fuss! They had
to throw water on her; Shrimp took her home in an express-wagon. Hell,
boss, I'm a married man--I got a family! I know what I ought to do, and
I'm goin' home, the judge says I got to! Him and me talked it all over,
and he's goin' to speak to Marsh about keepin' me here!"

"So you've told him we keep you here?" And the gambler glowered at him.
He poured himself a drink of whisky and swallowed it at a gulp. "Well,
what else did you tell him?" he asked over the rim of his glass.

"That's about all; only me and the judge understand each other," said
the handy-man vaguely.

"Well, it was enough!" rejoined Gilmore. "You are sure you didn't say
anything about North?"

Montgomery shook his head in vigorous denial.

"Sure?" repeated Gilmore, his glance intent and piercing. "Sure?"

A sickly pallor was overspreading the handy-man's flame-colored visage.
It began at his heavy puffy jaws, and diffused itself about his cheeks.
He could feel it spread.

"Sure?" said the gambler. "Sure?"

There was an awful pause. Gilmore carefully replaced his glass on the