nd dollars over and over again, and tasting again the
joys of a double salary. Yet even his hardy imagination rarely rose to
the height of Sally Fortune. That hour of dreaming, however, made the
day of labour almost pleasant.

This time, in the very middle of his dream, he reached the cross-roads
saloon and general merchandise store of Flanders; so he banished his
visions with a compelling shrug of the shoulders and rode for it at a
gallop, a hot dryness growing in his throat at every stride. Quick
service he was sure to get, for there were not more than half a dozen
cattle-ponies standing in front of the little building with its rickety
walls guiltless of paint save for the one great sign inscribed with
uncertain letters.

He swung from the saddle, tossed the reins over the head of the mustang,
made a stride forward--and then checked himself with a soft curse and
reached for his gun.

For the door of the bar dashed open and down the steps rushed a tall man
with light yellow moustache, so long that it literally blew on either
side over his shoulders as he ran; in either hand he carried a
revolver---a two-gun man, fleeing, perhaps, from another murder.

For Nash recognized in him a character notorious through a thousand
miles of the range, Sandy Ferguson, nicknamed by the colour of that
famous moustache, which was envied and dreaded so far and so wide. It
was not fear that made Nash halt, for otherwise he would have finished
the motion and whipped out his gun; but at least it was something
closely akin to fear.

For that matter, there were unmistakable signs in Sandy himself of what
would have been called arrant terror in any other man. His face was so
bloodless that the pallor showed even through the leathery tan; one eye
stared wildly, the other being sheltered under a clumsy patch which
could not quite conceal the ugly bruise beneath. Under his great
moustache his lips were as puffed and swollen as the lips of a negro.

Staggering in his haste, he whirled a few paces from the house and
turned, his guns levelled. At the same moment the door opened and the
perspiring figure of little fat Flanders appeared. Scorn and anger
rather than hate or any bloodlust appeared in his face. His right arm,
hanging loosely at his side, held a revolver, and he seemed to have the
greatest unconcern for the levelled weapons of the gunman.

He made a gesture with that armed hand, and Sandy winced as though a
whiplash had flicked hi