Safer?" he repeated. "I wasn't thinking of safety."

"Think of it," advised the visitor; "for if you set your grooms on me,
they could perhaps throw me out. But as sure as they did I'd kill you
the next time we met."

Densmore smiled. "You!" he said contemptuously. "Kill, eh? Did you ever
kill any one?"

"Yes."

Under their jet brows Densmore's eyes took on a peculiar look of
intensity. "A Ledger reporter," he murmured. "See here! Is your name
Banneker, by any chance?"

"Yes."

"You're the man who cleared out the wharf-gang."

"Yes."

Densmore had been born and brought up in a cult to which courage is the
basic, inclusive virtue for mankind, as chastity is for womankind. To
his inground prejudice a man who was simply and unaffectedly brave must
by that very fact be fine and admirable. And this man had not only shown
an iron nerve, but afterward, in the investigation, which Densmore had
followed, he had borne himself with the modesty, discretion, and good
taste of the instinctive gentleman. The poloist was almost pathetically
at a loss. When he spoke again his whole tone and manner had undergone a
vital transformation.

"But, good God!" he cried in real distress and bewilderment, "a fellow
who could do what you did, stand up to those gun-men in the dark and
alone, to be garbaging around asking rotten, prying questions about a
man's sister! No! I don't get it."

Banneker felt the blood run up into his face, under the sting of the
other's puzzled protest, as it would never have done under open contempt
or threat. A miserable, dull hopelessness possessed him. "It's part of
the business," he muttered.

"Then it's a rotten business," retorted the horseman. "Do you _have_ to
do this?"

"Somebody has to get the news."

"News! Scavenger's filth. See here, Banneker, I'm sorry I roughed you
about the whip. But, to ask a man questions about the women of his own
family--No: I'm _damned_ if I get it." He lost himself in thought, and
when he spoke again it was as much to himself as to the man on the
ground. "Suppose I did make a frank statement: you can never trust the
papers to get it straight, even if they mean to, which is doubtful. And
there's Io's name smeared all over--Hel-lo! What's the matter, now?" For
his horse had shied away from an involuntary jerk of Banneker's muscles,
responsive to electrified nerves, so sharply as to disturb the rider's
balance.

"What name did you say?" muttered Banneker, involunta