h the Annersley case, and was altogether
unimpressed by The Spider's appearance, save that he mentally labeled
him a "rough-neck" who was evidently pretty badly crippled by
rheumatism.

The Spider felt tempted to resort to bribery, but there was something
so officious and aggressively professional in the manner of this
"straw-boss"--as The Spider mentally labeled him--that The Spider
hesitated to flatter his egotism by admitting that he held the
whip-hand.

"Then mebby you can find out how he's getting along?" queried The
Spider, in his high-pitched voice.

"No objection to that," said the young doctor, reaching for the desk
'phone. "Two-eighteen, please. Two-eighteen? How is your patient
to-night? That so? H-m-m! Oh, this is Miss Gray talking? H-m-m!
Thanks." And he hung up the receiver.

"The patient is doing very well--exceptionally well. Would you care to
leave any message?"

"You might tell Doc Andover to leave word that when I call, I get to
see the folks I come to see--and I reckon he'll set you straight."

"Oh, I didn't--er--know you were a friend of Dr. Andover's. What is
the name, please?"

"'T wouldn't interest you none, little man. Thanks for the
information." And The Spider hobbled out and clumped stiffly down the
wide stone stairway.

The young doctor adjusted his glasses and stared into vacancy. "H-m-m!
And he had the nerve to call _me_ 'little man.' Now I should call him
a decidedly suspicious character. Looks something like an overgrown
spider. Birds of a feather," he added sententiously, with an air of
conscious rectitude, and a disregard for the propriety of the implied
metaphor. It is not quite certain whether he had Andover or Pete in
mind. But it is most probable that had he allowed The Spider to see
Pete that evening and talk with him, The Spider would have left El Paso
the next day, as he had planned, instead of waiting until the following
evening, against his own judgment and in direct opposition to that
peculiar mental reaction called "a hunch" by those not familiar with
the niceties of the English language, and called nothing really more
expressive by those who are.

So far as The Spider knew, he had not been recognized by any one. Yet
with that peculiar intuition of the gunman and killer he knew that he
was marked. He wondered which of his old enemies had found him
out--and when and how that enemy would strike.

That night he wrote a short letter to Pete, sta