ools stretched away on every side.

It was still nearly a mile from Drowned Valley when Jake Kloon halted in
his tracks and seated himself on a narrow ridge of hard ground. And
Leverett came lightly up and, after nosing the whole vicinity, sat down
cautiously where Kloon would have to turn partly around to look at him.

"Where the hell do we meet up with Quintana?" growled Kloon, tearing a
mouthful from a gnawed tobacco plug and shoving the remainder deep into
his trousers pocket.

"We gotta travel a piece, yet. ... Say, Jake, be you a man or be you a
poor dumb critter what ain't got no spunk?"

Kloon, chewing on his cud, turned and glanced at him. Then he spat, as
answer.

"If you got the spunk of a chipmunk you and me'll take a peek at that
there packet. I bet you it's thousand-dollar bills -- more'n a billion
million dollars, likely."

Kloon's dogged silence continued. Leverett licked his dry lips. His
rifle lay on his knees. Almost imperceptibly he moved it, moved it
again, froze stiff as Kloon spat, then, by infinitesimal degrees,
continued to edge the muzzle toward Kloon.

"Jake?"

"Aw, shut your head," grumbled Kloon disdainfully. "You allus was a
dirty rat -- you sneakin' trap robber. Enough's enough. I ain't no use
for no billion million dollar bills. Ten thousand'll buy me all I
cal'late to need till I'm planted. But you're like a hawg; you ain't
never had enough o' nothin' and you won't never git enough, neither, --
not if you wuz God a'mighty you wouldn't."

"Ten thousand dollars hain't nothin' to a billion million, Jake."

Kloon squirted a stream of tobacco at a pitcher plant and filled the
cup. Diverted and gratified by the accuracy of his aim, he took other
shots at intervals.

Leverett moved the muzzle of his rifle a hair's width to the left,
shivered, moved it again. Under his soggy, sun-tanned skin a pallour
made his visage sickly grey.

"Jake?"

No answer.

"Say, Jake?"

No notice.

"Jake, I wanta take a peek at them bills."

Merely another stream of tobacco soiling the crimson pitcher.

"I'm -- I'm desprit. I gotta take a peek. I gotta -- gotta----"

Something in Leverett's unsteady voice made Kloon turn his head.

"You gol rammed fool," he said, "what you doin' with your----"

The loud detonation of the rifle punctuated Kloon's inquiry with a final
period. The big, soft-nosed bullet struck him full in the face,
spilling his brains and part of his skull dow