e and family. I
owe you--how much?"

"Five thousand," said Crimmins deprecatingly, adding on the two just to
show he had no hard feelings.

"Good," said Garrison. He bit his knuckles; bit until the blood came.
"Good," he said again. He was silent.

"I ain't in a hurry," put in Crimmins magnanimously. "But you can pay it
easy. The major--"

"Is a gentleman," finished Garrison, eyes narrowed. "A gentleman whom
I've wronged--treated like--" He clenched his hands. Words were of no
avail.

"That's all right," argued the other persuasively. "What's the use of
gettin' flossy over it now? Ain't you known all along, when you put
the game up on him, that you wasn't his nephew; that you were doin' him
dirt?"

"Shut up," blazed Garrison savagely. "I know--what I've done. Fouled
those I'm not fit to grovel to. I thought I was honest--in a way. Now I
know I'm the scum I am--"

"You don't mean to say you're goin' to welch again?" asked the horrified
Crimmins. "Goin' to tell the major--"

"Just that, Crimmins. Tell them what I am. Tell Waterbury, and face that
charge for poisoning his horse. I may have been what you say, but
I'm not that now. I'm not," he reiterated passionately, daring
contradiction. "I've sneaked long enough. Now I'm done with it--"

"See here," inserted Crimmins, dangerously reasonable, "your little
white-washing game may be all right to you, but where does Dan Crimmins
come in and sit down? It ain't his way to be left standing. You
splittin' to the major and Waterbury? They'll mash your face off! And
where's my five thousand, eh? Where is it if you throw over the bank?"

"Damn your five thousand!" shrilled Garrison, passion throwing him.
"What's your debt to what I owe? What's money? You say you're my friend.
You say you have been. Yet you come here to blackmail me--yes, that's
the word I used, and the one I mean. Blackmail. You want me to continue
living a lie so that I may stop your mouth with money. You say I'm
married. But do you wish me to go back to my wife and children, to try
to square myself before God and them? Do you wish me to face Waterbury,
and take what's coming to me? No, you don't, you don't. You lie if you
say you do. It's yourself--yourself you're thinking of. I'm to be
your jackal. That's your friendship, but I say if that's friendship,
Crimmins, then to the devil with it, and may God send me hatred
instead!" He choked with the sheer smother of his passion.

Crimmins was breathing