ing years
regretfully, as time wasted; a thankless struggle toward the regard of
his fellow men. Of what avail to plod along the path of uprightness
when no man would point to him and say, "There is an honest man."

"They've give me the name, and I ain't got the game," cried Tom
bitterly, in the quiet of his cell. "Whether I go to the pen or
whether I don't, they better stand from under. They'll sure know a
Lorrigan's livin' in the Black Rim before I'm done."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE GAME

At the long table in the living room of the Devil's Tooth ranch Tom
Lorrigan sat and sharpened an indelible pencil with the razor-edged
small blade of his jackknife. On the open space which Tom had cleared
with the sweep of his arm, a large-sized tablet of glazed and ruled
paper, with George Washington pictured in red and blue and buff on the
cover, received the wood parings from the pencil. It may have been
significant that Tom was careful in his work and made the pencil very
sharp.

Across the room, Belle swung around on the piano stool and looked at
him. "Honey, if you're going to make out the order to Montgomery,
Ward, I'd like to send on for some more music. I've been going over
that new list--"

"I ain't," said Tom, removing his cigarette from the corner of his
mouth and blowing the tiny, blue-painted shavings off George
Washington's face. "You go ahead and make out the order yourself."

Belle eyed the pencil-sharpening and sent a keen glance at Tom's face.
"Well, honey, from the way you're squaring up to that tablet, I
thought you was going to send on for a new buckboard and mower."

Tom bent his head and blew again, gave George a sardonic grin and
turned him face-down on the table, so that the ruled paper lay ready
to his hand.

"Right now I'm going to figure up what that dang spotty yearlin' of
old Scotty's cost me," he stated grimly. "And there's some other Black
Rimmers I've got a bill against."

"Hope you don't try holding your breath till you collect," Belle
retorted. "Honey, you'd best leave the Black Rimmers alone. I feel as
if we'd had enough excitement enough for a while. I wouldn't start
anything more right now, if I was you. Every last one of them is ready
to jump on your neck--and the Lord only knows why, unless it's because
you _didn't_ steal that darned spotted yearling! Some folks sure do
love to see the other fellow up to his eyebrows in trouble. They were
sitting there in that courtroom just _