aineer, cheerfully.
"An' I've got a woman thar es'll send 'em when I want 'em."

"She may send them when you wish."

Stamps fell into a paroxysm of coughing, clutching his side.

"Will ye give five hundred?" he panted when it was over.

"Yes."

"Ye want 'em pretty bad, do ye?" said Stamps, looking at him with a
curiosity not untinged with dubiousness. He was sharp enough to realise
that, upon the whole, his case was not a strong one.

"I don't want them for the reason you think I want them for," Latimer
replied; his voice was cold and hard, and his manner unpromisingly free
from emotion or eagerness. "I want them for a reason of my own. As for
your pretence of recognising me as a man you have seen before, go out
into the street corners and say what you choose. My friends know how and
where my life has been spent, and you are shrewd enough to know how far
your word will stand against mine. If you need the money now, you had
better produce what you have to sell."

"I could get ye mightily talked about," said Stamps, restlessly.

"Try it," answered Latimer, and turned as if to walk out of the room. He
knew what he was dealing with, and saw the fevered cupidity and fear in
the little, shifting eyes.

Stamps struggled up into a sitting posture on his mattress and broke
forth into coughs again.

"Come back yere," he cried between gasps; "ye needn't ter go."

Latimer paused where he stood and waited until the fit of coughing was
over; and Stamps threw himself back exhausted. His shifty eyes burned
uncannily, his physical and mental fever were too much for him. Linthicum
had just left him before Latimer arrived, and upon the production of five
hundred dollars rested the fate of the claim for the herds.

"Ef ye'll bring the money--cash down--next Saturday," he said, "I'll give
ye the papers. I'll hev 'em yere by then. When ye've got 'em," with the
agreeable grin again, "ye kin go to yer friend's far'well lecture easy in
ye mind. Ye wouldn't be likely to go to many of 'em ef he knowed what I
could tell him. He's powerful thick with Tom D'Willerby and Sheby. They
think a heap of him. Tom must hev guessed what I've guessed, but he don't
want no talk on accounts o' Sheby. Tom knows which side his bread's
buttered--he ain't nigh as big a fool as he looks."

Latimer stood still.

"Next Saturday?" was his sole response. "In the meantime, I should advise
you to send for the doctor."

He left him coughing and catching a