o cursing Gilmore.

It was a good five minutes from the time he recovered consciousness
until he was able to assume a sitting posture, when he rested his
battered face in his hands and nursed his bruises.

"And me his cousin!" he muttered, and groaned again.

He feebly wiped his bloody hands on the legs of his trousers and by an
effort staggered to his feet. His only idea was escape; and steadying
himself he managed to reach the door; but the door was locked, and he
flung himself down in a convenient chair and once more fell to nursing
his wounds.

Fifteen or twenty minutes had passed when he heard steps in the hallway.
He knew it was Gilmore returning, but the gambler was not alone;
Montgomery heard him speak to his companion as a key was fitted to the
lock. The door swung open and Gilmore, followed by Marshall Langham,
entered the room.

"Here's the drunken hound, Marsh!" said the gambler.

"For God's sake, boss, let me out of this!" cried Montgomery, addressing
himself to Langham.

"Yes, we will--like hell!" said Gilmore. "By rights we ought to take you
down to the creek, knock you in the head and heave you in--eh, Marsh?
That's about the size of what we _ought_ to do!"

Langham's face was white and drawn with apprehension, yet he surveyed
the ruin the gambler had wrought with something like pity.

"Why, what's happened to him, Andy?" he asked.

His companion laughed brutally.

"Oh, I punched him up some, I couldn't keep my hands off him, I only
wonder I didn't kill him--"

"Let me out of this, boss--" whined the handy-man.

"Shut up, you!" said the gambler roughly.

He drew back his hand, but Langham caught his arm.

"Don't do that, Andy!" he said. "He isn't in any shape to stand much
more of that; and what's the use, the harm's done!"

The gambler scowled on his cousin Joe with moody resentment.

"All the same I've got a good notion to finish the job!" he said.

"Let me go home, boss!" entreated Montgomery, still addressing himself
to Langham. "God's sake, he pretty near killed me!"

He stood up on shaking legs.

Wretched, abject, his uneasy glance shifted first from one to the other
of his patrons, who were now his judges, and for aught he knew would be
his executioners as well. The gambler glared back at him with an
expression of set ferocity which told him he need expect no mercy from
that source; but with Langham it was different; he at least was not
wantonly brutal. The sight of physic