hen I can be
arrested?"

"You can," Luke Tweezy declared with evident relish. "That is, you can
if Lanpher wants to make a complaint."

"You hear, Lanpher?" asked Racey, still more nervously. "You wanna
make a complaint, huh?"

Lanpher had not failed to note the nervousness of Racey's tone. Now he
licked his lips again. He felt quite cheerful of a sudden. It gave
him a warm and pleasant feeling to think that Racey Dawson was to a
certain degree in his power. Having licked his lips several times he
rubbed his chin judicially and coughed, likewise judicially.

"Well, I dunno as I wanna make a complaint exactly," he said, slowly.
"But you wanna walk a chalkline round here, Racey. You got too much to
say for a fact."

"What do you think, Luke?" queried Racey. "Have I got too much to
say?"

"You heard what Lanpher said," replied the cautious Luke.

"Yep, I heard all right. I just wanted to get yore opinion, because I
ain't through yet--through talking, I mean. What I was going to say is
that I wouldn't be particular about catching Lanpher round Moccasin
Spring. If I only _heard_ he'd been hanging round there it would be
enough."

"Meaning you'll drill him on suspicion?"

"Meaning I'll do just that."

"Now yo're threatenin' me again." Thus Lanpher.

"Takes you a long time to wake up, don't it?" The nervousness had
vanished from Racey's voice. "Lanpher, you lousy skunk! Why don't you
pull? There's a gun in that open drawer not six inches from your hand.
Go after it, you hound-dog!"

Lanpher was not inordinately brave. He would go out of his way to
avoid an appeal to lethal weapons. But Racey's words were more than he
could stand. His hand jerked sidewise and down toward the sixshooter
in the open drawer.

Bang! Shooting from the hip Racey drove an accurate bullet through the
manager's right forearm. Lanpher grunted and gurgled with pain. But he
made no attempt to seize his weapon with his left hand.

Luke Tweezy picked himself up from the floor where he had thrown
himself a split second before the shot. Luke Tweezy's leathery face
was mottled yellow with rage.

"I'll get you ten years for this!" he squalled, pointing a long arm at
Racey. "You started this fight! You tried to murder him!"

"Oh, say not so," said Racey. "If I'd wanted to kill him I wouldn't
'a' plugged him in the arm, would I? That wouldn't 'a' been sensible."

"You provoked this fraycas!" snarled Luke, disregarding Racey's point
in a tru