o was it?"

"I thought you might have noticed. One of them was that crooked eyed
jasper I saw you staking to free drinks the last time I was in town."

He stared straight into the smaller man's eyes, saw the colour deepen in
his cheeks, shrugged his big shoulders and went to the door. Several of
the men who had come back into the room looked after him curiously, then
as though for explanation, into Blackie's narrowed eyes. The bartender's
hand dropped swiftly out of sight under his bar. Thornton's back was
turned square upon him. And yet, as though he had seen the gesture and
it had been full of significance to him, he whirled with a movement even
quicker than Blackie's had been, and standing loosely, his hands at his
side, looked coolly into the bright black eyes. For a moment no man
moved. Then Blackie, with a little sigh which sounded loudly in the
quiet room, brought his hand back into sight, letting his fingers tap
upon the bar. Thornton smiled, turned again and stepped quickly out of
the door.

"As long as they don't get any closer to the Poison Hole it's none of my
funeral," he muttered to himself. "But if they do, I know one little man
who could do a powerful lot of squealing with the proper inducement!"

Not turning once he passed swiftly down the street toward the stable,
his meditative eyes upon the rocking stage sweeping on to the
south-east, already drawing close to the first of the wooded foothills.
He waited ten minutes, watching his horse eating, and then saddled and
rode out toward the hills.

CHAPTER VII

AN INVITATION TO SUPPER

It was hardly noon. Here the county road, cutting straight through the
rolling fields, was broad, wet and black, glistening under the sun. Out
yonder in front of him the stage, driven rapidly by Hap Smith that he
might make up a little of the lost time, topped a gentle rise, stood out
briefly against the sky line, shot down into the bed of Dry Creek and
was lost to him. A little puzzled frown crept into Thornton's eyes.

"A man would almost say old Pop was right," he told himself. "This state
is getting too settled up for this kind of game to be pulled off so
all-fired regularly. Cole Dalton must be blind in his off eye.... Oh,
hell! It is none of my business. Any way ... not yet."

He pulled his horse out into the trail paralleling the muddy road,
jerked his hat down lower over his forehead, slumped forward a little in
the saddle, and gave himself over to th