he sudden revulsion of his
feelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait held
out to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He remembered
cases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended in
becoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribe
that had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned that
it had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himself
that, offered by another, it might have won him--and he felt a little
quiver of fear at the thought.

But when he pictured himself as the associate of this old harpy who sat
leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of
proprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of
his indignation on behalf of the cheated brother.

"That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?" inquired Ward,
misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks.

"I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for a
moment," replied the young man.

"Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men--especially a young
man," said the colonel blandly.

"But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew what
it was to resist temptation," shouted Parker. "And I'm going to tell you
now and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with you
than I'd poison myself with paris green." He flung himself back in his
chair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation.

For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise was
greater, for he believed that he had landed his fish.

"And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you,
either," cried the young man, his voice trembling.

"I've read about such critters as you be," said the colonel slowly, "but
it was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn't
believe it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died young
and went to heaven--the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and he
didn't die--went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't and
pants."

Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder.

"There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair,
Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor to
be one of your hired men, either."

"Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and play
Branscome's mule,