Gentle Annie."

"Yes," said Wallie with a white face. "This finishes me."

"You'll have to kiss your wheat good-bye. It'll be beat into the ground
too hard ever to straighten." He laid an arm about Wallie's shoulder and
there was a sympathy in his voice few had heard there:

"You've put up a good fight, old pardner, and even if you are counted
out, it's no shame to you. You've done good fer a Scissor-bill, Gentle
Annie."

Wallie clenched his hands and shook himself free of Pinkey's arm while
his tense voice rang out above the clatter and crash of the storm:

"I'm not licked! I _won't_ be licked! _I'm going to stick, somehow!_ And
what's more," he turned to Pinkey fiercely, "if you don't stop calling
me 'Gentle Annie,' I'll knock your block off!"

Pinkey looked at him with his pale, humorous eyes and beamed
approvingly.

CHAPTER XIV

LIFTING A CACHE

The Prouty barber lathering the face of a customer, after the manner of
a man whitewashing a chicken coop, paused on an upward stroke to listen.
Then he stepped to the door, looked down the street, and nodded in
confirmation. After which he returned, laid down his brush, and pinned
on a nickel badge, which act transformed him into the town constable.

The patron in the chair, a travelling salesman, watched the pantomime
with interest.

"One moment, please." The barber-officer excused himself and stepped out
to the edge of the sidewalk, where he awaited the approach of a pair on
horseback who were making the welkin ring with a time-honoured ballad of
the country:

I'm a howler from the prairies of the West.
If you want to die with terror, look at me.
I'm chain-lightnin'----

As they came abreast the constable held out his hand and the pair
automatically laid six-shooters in it and went on without stopping in
their song:

--if I ain't, may I be blessed.
I'm a snorter of the boundless, lone prairee.

Other citizens than the barber recognized the voices, and frowned or
smiled as happened, among whom was Mr. Tucker repairing a sofa in the
rear of his "Second-Hand Store."

Returning, the constable laid the six-shooters on the shelf among the
shaving mugs and removed his badge.

"Who's that?" inquired the patron, since the barber offered no
explanation.

"Oh, them toughs--'Gentle Annie' Macpherson and 'Pinkey' Fripp," was the
answer in a wearied tone. "I hate to see 'em come to town."

The pair continued to warble on their way