," said
Pringle.

"Not even hurt badly. I was after the Man Lower Down. What the Major
told me was that the Barelas were at the ranch--more than enough to
hold Lisner's crowd down. They come at daylight. I was expecting that,
and waiting. As I told you, that's the best thing I do--waiting."

"But how did you know?" demanded Breslin, puzzled.

"I didn't know, for sure. I had a hunch and I played it. So I killed
poor Applegate--temporarily. It worked out just right and nothing to
carry."

"One of the mainest matters with the widely-known world," said Pringle
wearily, "is that people won't play their hunches. They haven't spunk
enough to believe what they know. Let me spell it out for you in words
of two cylinders, Breslin: You saw that I knew Creagan and Applegate,
while they positively refused to know me at any price; you heard
the sheriff deny that I was at the Gadsden House before I'd claimed
anything of the sort. Of course you didn't know anything about the
fight at the Gadsden House, but that was enough to show you something
wasn't right, just the same. You had all the material to build a nice
plump hunch. It all went over your head. You put me in mind of the
lightning bug:

"_The lightning bug is brilliant,
But it hasn't any mind;
It wanders through creation
With its headlight on behind_.

"Come on--let's move. I'm fair dead for sleep."

"Just a minute!" said Anastacio. "I want to call your attention to the
big dust off in the north. I've been watching it half an hour. That
dust, if I'm not mistaken, is the Bar Cross coming; they've heard the
news!"

"So, Mr. Lisner, you hadn't a chance to get by with it," said Pringle
slowly and thoughtfully. "If I hadn't balked you, the Barelas stood
ready; if the Barelas failed, yonder big dust was on the way; half
your own posse would have turned on you for half a guess at the truth.
It's a real nice little world--and it hates a lie. A good many people
lay their fine-drawn plans, but they mostly don't come off! Men are
but dust, they tell us. Magnificent dust! This nice little old world
of ours, in the long run, is going right. You can't beat the Game!
Once, yes--or twice--not in the long run. The Percentage is all
against you. You can't beat the Game!"

"It's up to you, Sheriff," said Anastacio briskly. "I can turn you
over to the Bar Cross outfit and they'll hang you now; or I can turn
you over to the Barelas and you will be hung later. Dick M