she asked.

Bob looked at his watch. "I got an appointment to meet him at Delmonico's
right now. Maybe I can get him to come up to the house afterward."

Joyce was a young woman who made swift decisions. "I'll go with you now,"
she said.

Sanders was standing in front of the restaurant, but he was faced in the
other direction. His flat, muscular back was rigid. In his attitude was a
certain tenseness, as though his body was a bundle of steel springs ready
to be released.

Bob's eye traveled swiftly past him to a fat man rolling up the street on
the opposite sidewalk. "It's Ad Miller, back from the pen. I heard he got
out this week," he told the girl in a low voice.

Joyce Crawford felt the blood ebb from her face. It was as though her
heart had been drenched with ice water. What was going to take place
between these men? Were they armed? Would the gambler recognize his old
enemy?

She knew that each was responsible for the other's prison sentence.
Sanders had followed the thieves to Denver and found them with his horse.
The fat crook had lied Dave into the penitentiary by swearing that the
boy had fired the first shots. Now they were meeting for the first time
since.

Miller had been drinking. The stiff precision of his gait showed that.
For a moment it seemed that he would pass without noticing the man across
the road. Then, by some twist of chance, he decided to take the sidewalk
on the other side. The sign of the Delmonico had caught his eye and he
remembered that he was hungry.

He took one step--and stopped. He had recognized Sanders. His eyes
narrowed. The head on his short, red neck was thrust forward.

"Goddlemighty!" he screamed, and next moment was plucking a revolver from
under his left armpit.

Bob caught Joyce and swept her behind him, covering her with his body as
best he could. At the same time Sanders plunged forward, arrow-straight
and swift. The revolver cracked. It spat fire a second time, a third. The
tiger-man, head low, his whole splendid body vibrant with energy, hurled
himself across the road as though he had been flung from a catapult. A
streak of fire ripped through his shoulder. Another shot boomed almost
simultaneously. He thudded hard into the fat paunch of the gunman. They
went down together.

The fingers of Dave's left hand closed on the fat wrist of the gambler.
His other hand tore the revolver away from the slack grasp. The gun rose
and fell. Miller went into unconsciousne