"Who licked you?" he asked, forced to change his thoughts. "Who licked
you--before I got at you?"

Perris smiled, and there was something about the smile that made
Hervey flush to the roots of his grey hair.

"Alcatraz had the first innings," said Perris. "He cleaned me up. And
that, Hervey, was tolerably lucky for you."

"Was it?" sneered the victor. "You'd of done me up quick, maybe, if
Alcatraz hadn't wore you out?"

He waited hungrily for a reply that might give him some basis on which
to act, for after all, it was not going to be easy to fire pointblank
into those steady, steady eyes. And more than all, he hungered to see
some wavering of courage, some blenching from the thing to come.

"Done you up?" echoed Red Jim. And he ran his glance slowly,
thoughtfully over the body of the foreman. "I'd of busted you in two,
Hervey."

A little chilly shiver ran through Hervey but he managed to shrug
the feeling away--the feeling that someone was standing behind him,
listening, and looking into his shameful soul. But no one could be
near. It would be simple, perfectly simple. What person in the world
could doubt his story of how he met Perris at the shack and warned him
again to leave the Valley of the Eagles and of how Perris went for the
gun but was beaten in fair fight? Who could doubt it? An immense sense
of security settled around him.

"Well," he said, "second guessing is easy, even for a fool."

"Right," nodded Red Jim. "I should of knifed you when I had you down."

"If you'd had a knife," said Hervey.

"Look at my belt, Lew."

There it was, the stout handle of a hunting knife. The same chill
swept through Hervey a second time and, for a moment, he wavered
in his determination. Then, with all his heart, he envied that
indefinable thing in the eyes of Perris, the thing which he had hated
all his life. Some horses had it, creatures with high heads, and
always he had made it a point to take that proud gleam out.

"A hoss is made for work, not foolishness," he used to say.

Here it was, looking out at him from the eyes of his victim. He hated
it, he feared and envied it, and from the very bottom of his heart he
yearned to destroy it before he destroyed Perris.

"You know," he said with sudden savagery, "what's coming?"

"I'm a pretty good guesser," nodded Red Jim. "When a fellow tries to
shoot me in the dark, and then slugs me with a chair and ties me up, I
generally make it out that he figures on murde