gging to me to get you out of
trouble?"

"You lie!" burst out Perris.

But by his roving glance, by the sudden outpouring of sweat which
gleamed on his forehead, Hervey knew that he had shaken his man to the
soul. By playing carefully on this string might he not reduce even
this care-free fighter to trembling love of life? Might he not make
Red Perris cringe! All cowards feel that their own vice exists in
others. Hervey, in his entire life, had dreaded nothing saving Red
Jim, and now he felt that he had found the thing which would make life
too dear to Perris to be given up with a smile.

"Begging? I'll tell a man she did!" nodded Hervey.

"It's because she's plumb generous. She thought that might turn you.
Why--she don't hardly know me!"

"Don't she?" sneered Hervey. "You don't figure her right. She's one
of the hit or miss kind. She hated me the minute she laid eyes on
me--hated me for nothing! And you knocked her off her feet the first
shot. That's all there is to it. She'd give the Valley of the Eagles
for a smile from you."

He saw the glance of Perris wander into thin distance and soften. Then
the eye of Red Jim returned to his tormentor, desperately. The blow
had told better than Hervey could have hoped.

"And me a plain tramp--a loafer--me!" said Perris to himself. He added
suddenly: "Hervey, let's talk man to man!"

"Go on," said the foreman, and set his teeth to keep his exultation
from showing.

Five minutes more, he felt, and Perris would be begging like a coward
for his life.

CHAPTER XXII

MCGUIRE SLEEPS

Never did a fox approach a lion with more discretion than Marianne
approached the careless figure of McGuire. His very attitude was a
warning that her task was to be made as difficult as possible. He had
pushed his sombrero, limp with age and wear, far back on his head, and
now, gazing, apparently, into the distant blue depths of the sky, he
regarded vacancy with mild interest and blew in the same direction a
thin brownish vapor of smoke. Obviously he expected an argument; he
was leading her on. And just as obviously he wanted the argument
merely for the sake of killing time. He was in tremendous need of
amusement. That was all.

She wanted to go straight to him with a bitter appeal to his manhood,
to his mercy as a man. But she realized that this would not do at all.
A strenuous attack would simply rouse him. Therefore she called
up from some mysterious corner of her tormented hear