and he had come out with a gun in his hand. This he laid
on a table near the wall. He wore no belt. I rode right up to the porch
and, greeting them laconically, made a show of a somewhat tangle-footed
cowboy dismounting. The moment I got off and straightened up, I asked no
more. The game was mine. It was the great hour of my life and I met it
as I had never met another. I looked and acted what I pretended to be,
though a deep and intense passion, an almost ungovernable suspense, an
icy sickening nausea abided with me. All I needed, all I wanted was to
get Sampson and Wright together, or failing that, to maneuver into such
position that I had any kind of a chance. Sampson's gun on the table
made three distinct objects for me to watch and two of them could change
position.

"What do you want here?" demanded Wright. He was red, bloated,
thick-lipped, all fiery and sweaty from drink, though sober on the
moment, and he had the expression of a desperate man in his last stand.
It _was_ his last stand, though he was ignorant of that.

"Me--Say, Wright, I ain't fired yet," I replied, in slow-rising
resentment.

"Well, you're fired now," he replied insolently.

"Who fires me, I'd like to know?" I walked up on the porch and I had a
cigarette in one hand, a match in the other. I struck the match.

"I do," said Wright.

I studied him with apparent amusement. It had taken only one glance
around for me to divine that Sampson would enjoy any kind of a clash
between Wright and me. "Huh! You fired me once before an' it didn't go,
Wright. I reckon you don't stack up here as strong as you think."

He was facing the porch, moody, preoccupied, somber, all the time. Only
a little of his mind was concerned with me. Manifestly there were strong
forces at work. Both men were strained to a last degree, and Wright
could be made to break at almost a word. Sampson laughed mockingly at
this sally of mine, and that stung Wright. He stopped his pacing and
turned his handsome, fiery eyes on me. "Sampson, I won't stand this
man's impudence."

"Aw, Wright, cut that talk. I'm not impudent. Sampson knows I'm a good
fellow, on the square, and I have you sized up about O.K."

"All the same, Russ, you'd better dig out," said Sampson. "Don't kick up
any fuss. We're busy with deals to-day. And I expect visitors."

"Sure. I won't stay around where I ain't wanted," I replied. Then I lit
my cigarette and did not move an inch out of my tracks.

Sampson