,
and while I've got it I'm going to skin off what's coming to you."

He had taken a big roll of bills from his pocket, and was counting off
what he had lost to his friend. The latter noticed that it all seemed to
be in twenties.

"Twelve hundred. That squares us, Mac."

The Scotchman was vaguely uneasy without a definite reason for his
anxiety. Only last night Cullison had told him not a single bank in town
would advance him a dollar. Now he had money in plenty. Where had he got
it?

"No hurry at all, Luck. Pay when you're good and ready."

"That's now."

"Because I'll only put it in the Cattlemen's National. It's yours if you
need it."

"I'll let you know if I do," his friend nodded.

Mackenzie's eye fell on a copy of the _Sentinel_ protruding from the
other's pocket. "Read about the hold-up of the W. & S. Express? That
fellow had his nerve with him."

"Sho! This hold-up game's the easiest yet. He got the drop on them, and
there was nothing to it. The key was still in the lock of the door. Well,
when he gets through he steps out, turns the key, and rides away."

"How did he know there was money coming in last night?"

"There's always a leak about things of that sort. Somebody talks. I knew
it myself for that matter."

"You knew! Who told you?"

"That's a secret, Mac. Come to think of it, I wish you wouldn't tell
anybody that I knew. I don't want to get the man who told me in trouble."

"Sure I won't." He passed to another phase of the subject. "The _Sentinel_
says Bolt expects to catch the robber. Think he will?"

"Not if the fellow knows his business. Bolt has nothing to go on. He has
the whole Southwest to pick from. For all he knows, it was you."

"Yes, but----"

"Or more likely me." The gray eyes of the former sheriff held a frosty
smile.

In spite of that smile, or perhaps because of it, Mackenzie felt again
that flash of doubt. "What's the use of talking foolishness, Luck? Course
you didn't do it. Anybody would know that. Man, I whiles wonder at you,"
he protested, relapsing into his native tongue as he sometimes did when
excited.

"I didn't say I did it. I said I might have done it"

"Oh, well! You didn't. I know you too well."

But the trouble was Mackenzie did not know him well enough. Cullison was
hard up, close to the wall. How far would he go to save himself? Thirty
years before when they had been wild young lads these two had hunted their
fun together. Luck had always been the