don't squeal on each other."

"Do you mean that Brill isn't--what we've always thought him?"

"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd
hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did."

"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed.
"Are you a rustler, too?"

He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself
away any more to-day."

Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of
sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at
the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?"

"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him.
"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet."

"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon."

She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the
lash of a whip.

"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with
a furious oath.

Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She
stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager.

"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is
necessary," she said.

For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel,
and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy.

Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest
at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day.

After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin
Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent
life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with
range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians
and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games
of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and
poker.

It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant
frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as
simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to
a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden
death.

A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till
the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before
he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the
board, he welcomed Yeager with a