picious, didn't you? Why--you,
you make me feel like cutting your throat, to have you upset my plans
this way!"

McFluke raised himself on an arm. "I didn't upset yore plans none," he
denied, sulkily. "Everythin's comin' out all right. Hell, he wouldn't
play that day, anyway! Said he'd never touch a card or look at a
wheel again as long as he lived, and when I laughed at him he hit me.
Whatell else could I do? I hadda shoot him. I--"

"Shut up, you and your 'I's' and 'He wouldn't' and 'I hadda!' If
you've told me that tale once since you came here you've told me forty
times. Get up and get out! Yore horse is tied at the corral gate. I
roped him on my way in. C'mon! Get up! or will I have to crawl yore
hump again?"

But McFluke did not get up. Instead he scrabbled sidewise to the wall
and shrank against it. His eyes were wide, staring. They were fixed on
the doorway behind Mr. Pooley.

"I didn't do it, gents!" cried McFluke, thrusting out his hands before
his face as though to ward off a blow. "I didn't kill him! I didn't!
It's all a lie! I didn't kill him!"

Fat Jacob Pooley whirled to face three guns. His right hand fell away
reluctantly from the butt of his sixshooter. Slowly his arms went
above his head. Racey Dawson and his two companions entered the
room. The eldest of these companions was one of the Piegan City
town marshals. He was a friend of Jacob Pooley's. But there was no
friendliness in his face as he approached the register, removed his
gun, and searched his person for other weapons. Jacob Pooley said
nothing. His face was a dark red. The marshal produced a pair of
handcuffs. The register recoiled.

"Not those!" he protested. "Don't put handcuffs on me!"

"Put yore hands down," ordered the marshal.

"Look here, I'll go quietly. I'll--"

"Put yore hands _down_!" repeated the inexorable marshal.

Jacob Pooley put his hands down.

Racey and the other man were handcuffing McFluke, who was keeping up
an incessant wail of, "I didn't do it! I didn't, gents, I didn't!"

"Oh, shut up!" ordered Racey, jerking the prisoner to his feet. "You
talk too much."

"Where's yore Wells Fargo and Pinkerton detectives?" demanded Mr.
Pooley.

"This gent is the Wells Fargo detective," replied Racey, indicating
the man who had helped him handcuff McFluke. "There ain't any
Pinkerton within five hundred miles so far as I know.... Huh? Them?
Oh, they were just drummers from Chicago I happened to speak to
because I