ting that he was in town
and would call to see him the following evening, adding that if he
failed to call Pete was to go to the Stockmen's Security and ask for
the president when he was able to be about. He mailed the letter
himself, walking several blocks to find a box. On his way back a man
passed him who peered at him curiously. The Spider's hand had crept
toward his upper vest-pocket as the other approached. After he passed,
The Spider drew out a fresh cigar and lighted it from the one he was
smoking. And he tossed the butt away and turned and glanced back. "I
wonder what White-Eye is doing in El Paso?" he asked himself. "He knew
me all right." The Spider shrugged his shoulders. His hunch had
proved itself. There was still time to leave town, but the fact that
White-Eye had recognized him and had not spoken was an insidious
challenge, the kind of a challenge which a killer never lets pass. For
the killer, strangely enough, is drawn to his kind through the instinct
of self-preservation, a psychological paradox to the layman, who does
not understand that peculiar pride of the gunman which leads him to
remove a menace rather than to avoid it. Curiosity as to a rival's
ability, his personal appearance, his quality of nerve, the sound of
his voice, has drawn many noted killers together--each anxious to prove
conclusively that he was the better man. And this curiosity, driven by
the high nervous tension of the man who must ever be on the alert, is
insatiable, and is assuaged only by insanity or his own death. The
removal of a rival does not satisfy this hunger to kill, but rather
creates a greater hunger, until, without the least provocation, the
killer will shoot down a man merely to satisfy temporarily this inhuman
and terrible craving. The killer veritably feeds upon death, until
that universal abhorrence of the abnormal, triumphant in the end,
adjusts the quivering balance--and Boot Hill boasts one more wooden
cross.

The Spider, limping up the stairway to his room, knew that he would not
leave El Paso, knew that he could not leave the town until satisfied as
to what White-Eye's silence meant. And not only that, but he would
find out. He lighted the oil-lamp on the dresser and gazed at himself
in the glass. Then he took off his coat, shaved, washed, and put on a
clean shirt and collar. He took some gold and loose silver from his
money-belt, put on his hat and coat, and hobbled downstairs. He
thou