does anybody think
Billy Byrne's boob enough to split with a guy that didn't have a hand in
it at all. Split! Why the nut'll take it all!

"Nix! Me for the border. I couldn't do a thing with all this coin down
in Rio, an' Bridgie'll be along there most any time. We can hit it up
some in lil' ol' Rio on this bunch o' dough. Why, say kid, there must be
a million here, from the weight of it."

A frown suddenly clouded his face. "Why did I take it?" he asked
himself. "Was I crackin' a safe, or was I pullin' off something fine fer
poor, bleedin' Mexico? If I was a-doin' that they ain't nothin' criminal
in what I done--except to the guy that owned the coin. If I was just
plain crackin' a safe on my own hook why then I'm a crook again an' I
can't be that--no, not with that face of yours standin' out there so
plain right in front of me, just as though you were there yourself,
askin' me to remember an' be decent. God! Barbara--why wasn't I born for
the likes of you, and not just a measly, ornery mucker like I am. Oh,
hell! what is that that Bridge sings of Knibbs's:

There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's longing much for me,
But I can smell the blundering sea, and hear the rigging hum;
And I can hear the whispering lips that fly before the out-bound ships,
And I can hear the breakers on the sand a-calling "Come!"

Billy took off his hat and scratched his head.

"Funny," he thought, "how a girl and poetry can get a tough nut like me.
I wonder what the guys that used to hang out in back of Kelly's 'ud
say if they seen what was goin' on in my bean just now. They'd call
me Lizzy, eh? Well, they wouldn't call me Lizzy more'n once. I may be
gettin' soft in the head, but I'm all to the good with my dukes."

Speed is not conducive to sentimental thoughts and so Billy had
unconsciously permitted his pony to drop into a lazy walk. There was no
need for haste anyhow. No one knew yet that the bank had been robbed,
or at least so Billy argued. He might, however, have thought differently
upon the subject of haste could he have had a glimpse of the horseman in
his rear--two miles behind him, now, but rapidly closing up the distance
at a keen gallop, while he strained his eyes across the moonlit flat
ahead in eager search for his quarry.

So absorbed was Billy Byrne in his reflections that his ears were deaf
to the pounding of the hoofs of the pursuer's horse upon the soft dust
of the dry road until Bridge was little mo