oth were coolly determined
and prepared with the fine weapon of mutual knowledge of one another.

"There's a silver case on the table; get me a cigarette and light it,
will you?" requested Gerard, in his low, unsure voice.

Rupert complied. He had not altogether escaped, himself, with mere
scratches; he limped as he came across to place the cigarette in the
languid fingers.

"I guess there ain't any special need to ask if it's hurting bad, when
you're wanting these dopes," he drew grim inference. "Here."

"It is, all the time. Thanks. I didn't bring you here to talk about
that, when you should be asleep, though. Rupert, no more is to be said
about Corrie Rose. There has been too much of that already, I can see."

Rupert's black eyes hardened and narrowed to lines of glinting jet.

"I've got the truth stripped down to running facts, carrying no
trimmings, and I'm demonstrating it to everybody I meet," he imparted
dryly. "And I mean to keep on. I know what you want, all right, and I
ain't intending to do it. Let him stand for what is coming to him."

Gerard lifted his cigarette, seeking the narcotic smoke. His superb
vitality and undrained youth had turned upon him like traitorous
servants upon a fallen master, denying him surcease in unconsciousness
and holding him as a sensitive instrument for pain to run its gamut
upon.

"Why?" he queried.

"Because I want to see him get his. You don't? I do. I guess my say
goes, this time. I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse, but
I'd go out and take another smash like we had to-day to see him wearing
zebra clothes in a jail. Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire
palace red-hot and get him ruled off every race course in the country."

"Rupert----"

The mechanician's gesture cut off protest.

"There ain't any use! I mean it."

"You liked Corrie----"

"I ain't noticing it, now. When you were behind the steering-wheel, your
say so was what happened--if you'd said to light the gasoline tank, I'd
have struck a match. That's business. This ain't. Rose stands for what
he did, for I'm free to put it through."

"Very true; I am helpless," Gerard acquiesced, his white lips
compressed, and averted his head on the pillow.

Checked, Rupert stared at the other with many shifting expressions
twitching his own angry dark face.

"Do you know what the doctors say?" he demanded, at last. "Are you
knowing, when you ask me to let Rose off, what he's done to you?"