ind-hearted and don't like to do
folks; but Firmstone and me were taking unwarranted liberties with your
plans. Now put your ear close to the ground, Frenchy, and listen hard
and you'll hear something drop. If you do Firmstone you'll see
cross-barred sunlight the rest of your days. I'll see to that. If you do
us both it won't make much difference. I've been taking my pen in hand
for a few months back, and the result is a bundle of papers in a safe
place. It may not be much in a literary way; but it will make mighty
interesting reading for such as it may concern, and you are one of them.
Now let me tell you one thing more. If this little damned thing had gone
through my head on the way to something harder, in just four days you'd
be taking your exercise in a corked jug. My game is worth two of yours.
Mine will play itself when I'm dead; yours won't."

Pierre's lips parted enough to show his set teeth.

"_Bien!_ You tink you bin damn smart, heh? I show you. You bin catch one
rattlesnake by ze tail. _Comment?_ I show you." Pierre rose.

"Better wait a bit, Frenchy. I've been giving you some information. Now
I'll give you some instructions. You've been planning to have Elise
married. Don't do it. You've made up your mind not to keep your promise
to her dead father and mother. You just go back to your original
intentions. It will be good for your body, and for your soul, too, if
you've got any. You're smooth stuff, Pierre, too smooth to think that
I'm talking four of a kind on a bob-tail flush. Comprenny?"

Pierre's eyes lost their fierceness, but his face none of its
determination.

"I ain't going to give hup my li'l Elise. _Sacre, non!_"

"That's for Elise to say. You've got to give her the chance."

There was a moment's pause. "How you bin mek me, heh?" Pierre turned
like a cat. There was a challenge in his words; but there were thoughts
he did not voice.

Zephyr was not to be surprised into saying more than he intended.

"That's a slick game, Pierre; but it won't work. If you want to draw my
fire, you'll have to hang more than an empty hat on a stick. In plain,
flat English, I've got you cinched. If you want to feel the straps draw,
just start in to buck."

Pierre rose from the table. His eyes were all but invisible. There was
no ursine clumsiness in his movements, as he walked to and fro in the
bar-room. As became a feline, he walked in silence and on his toes. He
was thinking of many a shady incident in his