Who fired that shot at me when I was
leaving?"

"So help me," protested Mike, "I dunno. I wasn't in the bar at the
time. I can prove I wasn't. Yer not looking well, Sam."

"Blister you for a slow dawdler, you'd not look well either, if you had
no sleep for a week and was starved into the bargain. Get a move on
you."

Sam ate like a wild beast what was set before him, and although he took
a stiff glass of whiskey and water at the beginning, he now drank
sparingly. He laid the revolver on the table at his elbow, and made
Mike sit opposite him. When the ravenous meal was finished, he pushed
the plate from him and looked across at Davlin.

"When I said I didn't trust you, Mike, I was a liar. I do, an' I'll
prove it. When it's your interest to befriend a man, you'll do it every
time."

"I will that," said Mike, not quite comprehending what the other had
said.

"Now listen to me, Mike, and be sure you do exactly as I tell you. Go
to where the bank manager lives and rouse him up as I roused you. He'll
not be afraid when he sees it's you. Tell him you've got me over in the
saloon, and that I've come to rob the bank of that fifty thousand
dollars. Say that I'm desperate and can't be taken short of a dozen
lives, and there is no lie in that, as you know. Tell him you've fallen
in with my plans, and that we'll go over there and hold him up. Tell
him the only chance of catching me is by a trick. He's to open the door
of the place where the money is, and you're to shove me in and lock me
up. But when he opens the door I'll send a bullet through him, and you
and me will divide the money. Nobody will suspect you, for nobody'll
know you were there but the bank man, and he'll be dead. But if you
make one move except as I tell you the first bullet goes through you.
See?"

Mike's eyes opened wider and wider as the scheme was disclosed. "Lord,
what a head you have, Sam!" he said. "Why didn't you think of that
before? The bank manager is in Austin."

"What the blazes is he doing there?"

"He took the money with him to put it in the Austin Bank. He left the
day after you did, for he said the only chance you had, was to get that
money. You might have done this the night you left, but not since."

"That's straight, is it?" said Sam suspiciously.

"It's God's truth I'm speaking," asserted Mike earnestly. "You can find
that out for yourself in the morning. Nobody'll molest ye. Yer jus'
dead beat for want o' sleep, I can see that.