id. "Me go into the galley to wait on a blasted tenderfoot?"

"After he leaves you'll have a month off with full pay and some over,
Shorty."

"Don't want the month off."

Drew considered him thoughtfully, following the precept of Walpole that
every man has his price.

"What _do_ you want, Shorty?"

The ex-sailor scratched his head and then rolled his eyes up with a
dawning smile, as one who sees a vision of ultimate bliss.

"Let one of the other boys catch my hoss out of the corral every morning
and saddle him for me for a month."

"It's a bargain. What'll you do with that time?"

"Sit on the fence and roll a cigarette like a blasted gentleman and damn
the eyes of the feller that's catchin' my hoss."

"And me," said Calamity Ben, "what do I get?"

"You get orders," answered Kilrain, "from me."

Calamity regarded him, uncertain whether or not to fight out the point,
but apparently decided that the effort was not worth while.

"There ain't going to be no luck come out of this," he said darkly.
"Before this tenderfoot gets out of the house, we're all going to wish
he was in hell."

CHAPTER XXIV

"SAM'L HALL"

But with the stage set and the curtain ready to rise on the farce, the
audience did not arrive until the shadow of the evening blotted the
windows of the office where big Lawlor waited impatiently, rehearsing
his part; but when the lamp had been lighted, as though that were a
signal for which the tenderfoot had waited, came a knock at the door of
the room, and then it was jerked open and the head of one of the
cowpunchers was inserted.

"He's coming!"

The head disappeared; the door slammed. Lawlor stretched both arms wide,
shifted his belt, loosened his gun in the holster for the fiftieth time,
and exhaled a long breath. Once more the door jerked open, and this time
it was the head and sullen face of Nash, enlivened now by a peculiarly
unpleasant smile.

"He's here!"

As the door closed the grim realization came to Lawlor that he could
not face the tenderfoot--his staring eyes and his pallor would betray
him even if the jerking of his hands did not. He swung about in the
comfortable chair, seized a book and whisking it open bowed his head to
read. All that he saw was a dance of irregular black lines: voices
sounded through the hall outside.

"Sure, he'll see you," Calamity Ben was saying. "And if you want to put
up for the night there ain't nobody more hospital than the Chief. Right