etly, "for your money. You work cheaply,
Arizona."

Jig's criticism seemed to pique him.

"How come?"

"Sandersen's death by your bullet, and mine when I die in the law. Both
to your account, Arizona, because you know I'm innocent."

"I know it, but a hunch ain't proof in the eyes of the law. Besides, I
don't work so cheap. Sandersen was no good. He ain't worth thinking
about. And as for you, Jig, though I don't like to throw it in your
face, as a schoolteacher you may be all right, but as a man you ain't
worth a damn. Nope. I won't give neither of you a thought--except for
Sinclair."

"Ah?"

"Him and you have been bunkies, if he ever should find out what I done,
he'd go on my trail. Maybe he will anyway. And he's a bad one to have
on a gent's trail."

"You fear him?" she asked curiously, for it had seemed impossible that
this cold-blooded gunman feared any living thing.

He rolled a cigarette meditatively before he answered.

"Sure," he said, "I fear him. I ain't a fool. It was him that started
me, and him that gave me the first main lessons. But I ain't got the
nacheral talent with a gun that Sinclair has got."

Nodding his head in confirmation, his expression softened, as with the
admiration of one artist for a greater kindred spirit.

"The proof is that they's a long list of gunfights in Sinclair's past,
but not more deaths than you can count on the fingers of one hand. And
them that he killed was plumb no good. The rest he winged and let 'em
go. That's his way, and it takes an artist with a gun to work like
that. Yep, he's a great man, curse him! Only one weak thing I ever hear
of him doing. He buckled to the sheriff and told him where to find
you!"

Scratching a match on his trousers, the cowpuncher was amazed to hear
Jig cry: "You lie!"

He gaped at her until the match singed his fingers. "That's a tolerable
loud word for a kid to use!"

Apparently he meditated punishment, but then he shrugged his shoulders
and lighted his cigarette.

"Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him!" Jig was repeating.

"Say," said the fat man, grinning, "how d'you know _I_ knew where you
was?"

Like a blow in the face it silenced her. She looked miserably down to
the ground. Was it possible that Sinclair had betrayed her? Not for the
murder of Quade. He would be more apt to confess that himself, and
indeed she dreaded the confession. But if he let her be dragged back,
if her identity became known, she fa