ld have been impossible to have driven into their
heads with a sledge-hammer. And maybe they would have been right. Who
could tell?

His decision was taken without any definite argument, without any
heroics. He frankly declared to himself that James must go. And having
decided, he, equally frankly, declared that "the proposition was up to
him." This was his silent ultimatum, and, having delivered it, there
was no turning back. He would carry it out with as little mercy to
himself as he would show to any other concerned.

The men of Suffering Creek thought they knew this man. But it is
doubtful if anybody, even the man himself, knew Wild Bill. Probably
the nearest approach to a fair estimate of him would have been to
describe him as a sort of driving force to a keen brain and hot,
passionate heart. Whether he possessed any of the gentler human
feelings only his acts could show, for so hard and unyielding was his
manner, so ruthless his purpose when his mind was made up, that it
left little room for the ordinary observer to pack in a belief of the
softer side to the man.

Ten minutes after performing his primitive ablutions Wild Bill was
eating breakfast in the dining-room at the store, with Minky sitting
opposite to him. The storekeeper was telling him of something that
happened the night before, with a troubled expression in his honest
eyes.

"I was wonderin' when you'd get around," he said, as soon as Birdie
Mason had withdrawn to the kitchen. "I'd have given a deal for you to
have been playin' last night. I would sure. There was three fellers,
strangers, lookin' for a hand at poker. They'd got a fine wad o'
money, too, and were ready for a tall game. They got one with Irish
O'Brien, an' Slade o' Kentucky, but they ain't fliers, an' the
strangers hit 'em good an' plenty. Guess they must ha' took five
hundred dollars out of 'em."

Bill's sharp eyes were suddenly lifted from his plate. He was eating
noisily.

"Did you locate 'em--the strangers?" he grated.

"That's sure the pinch," said Minky, wiping his broad forehead with a
colored handkerchief. The heat in the dining-room was oppressive.
"I've never see 'em before, an' they didn't seem like talkin' a heap.
They were all three hard-lookin' citizens, an'--might ha' been
anything from bum cowpunchers to--"

"Sharps," put in Bill, between noisy sips at his coffee.

"Yes."

Minky watched a number of flies settle on a greasy patch on the bare
table.

"Y'see