little dazed, rose
softly and unostentatiously, crossed to a shelf shoulder-high on the
wall and reached to remove a quart bottle of brandy which Steve,
returning home soaked through and through, had brought out and left
standing there. But Steve checked him in the very middle of that act.

"Let it stand, Joe," he directed. "Leave it where it is."

As slowly as he had reached for it Joe started to put the bottle back.
The very briefness of that order should have been warning enough, but
Joe found it impossible to keep to himself his disapproval.

"All right," he acquiesced, "only I can't help remindin' you, just the
same, that when a horse is runnin' his heart out it's kind of
superfluous to lay on the whip."

And then the whole accumulation of those days of silent perplexity, of
indecision and fruitless mental forays, spilled over upon Fat Joe's
entirely innocent head. Steve shot around and levelled a pre-emptory
finger.

"Whip--hell!" he barked. "Put that bottle back!"

Joe's fingers came away as though the glass had blistered them.

"Lands' sakes!" he exclaimed; and in a voice that was chastened and
meek when he had caught his breath: "Please, and it's back!"

Chronic ill-temper could hardly have persisted in the face of that
reply, and Steve's had been but a mood. His first chuckle was in
itself a plea for pardon. He supplemented it, aloud.

"I'm sorry, Joe--I'm worried. I've got a job on my hands that bothers
me. It appears to be simple enough, until I get to planning how to
tackle it, and then I can't make any headway at all. But there isn't
anything to be gained in hiding that stuff; that's one of the things I
need to know. It's better where it is."

Joe waved a hand in bland dismissal of the apology.

"My mistake," he averred, "though your harsh words have hurt me sore.
I don't quite savvy it yet, but it's your affair, not mine. You're
dealin' and bankin' the chips. And before now I've seen lots of
well-meanin' bystanders get all mussed up from trying to horn into
another man's pastime. At my age I'd ought to have knowed better!"

CHAPTER XVI

ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN

In itself that decision of Garry's to remain a little longer at
Thirty-Mile was scarcely significant enough to be called sensational,
and yet it proved to be the first of a series of events which, growing
more and more sensational as they progressed, finally resulted in the
hour for which Steve was biding his time.