ore. I had a
letter written from Bill Andrews tellin' me 'at he had heard you brag
'at you intended to get holt o' my money, an' that it would pay me to
search you instead o' suspectin' him--"

"Where was the letter from?" asked Dick.

"Laramie," sez the ol' man.

"Kind o' curious," sez Dick, an' his vice was as bitter as the dregs o'
sin; "that's where Denton came from too."

"You deceived me all along," sez the ol' man, not payin' much heed to
Dick, but speakin' mostly to himself. "You know 'at what I hate worse'n
anything else is deceit--an' here you've been fast an' loose with
women--" Dick tried to say somethin', but the ol' man stopped him.
"That was bad enough," he went on, "but I'm no fool; I know the world,
an' I could forgive you a good deal; but hang it, I never could forgive
you bein' a professional gambler--a man that lives by deceit an'
trickery an' false pretenses. Lookin' back now, it strikes me as bein'
mighty curious how you got the best o' Piker's deals too. Was Piker or
Denton, or whatever his name is, a gambler too?"

"He was," answered Dick in a low tone.

The ol' man squared himself, an' his face was as fierce as the face of
an ol' she bear. "Of all the human snakes I ever heard of, you crawl
the closest to the ground. You come here an' act as square as a man can
until you have made us all think the world of ya; an' yet in your black
heart you were all the time plottin' to get my money, usin' my little
girl as a burglar would use a bar to open a safe with. Even then you
couldn't wait in patience; your inborn cussedness forced you to steal
an' cheat--and yet, boy, I could almost forgive you for deceivin' me,
but I can't never forgive you for deceivin' my little girl. You stand
there with a gun in your hand an' I stand here with none; you brag 'at
no man can't doubt your dealin' without havin' cause to remember it;
but I tell you to your teeth that you're a sneak an' a cheat an' a
low-grade coward."

Dick stood with his head thrown back an' his left hand clenched, while
his right gripped the butt of his gun so fierce that the knuckles stood
out white as chalk an' the veins was black an' swollen. His bosom was
heavin', his teeth showed in a threatenin' white line, an' all the
savage th' was in him was cryin' kill, kill, kill!

He tottered a little when he took a step toward Jabez; but he laid the
gun on the table with the butt pointin' towards Jabez, an' then he went
back to the wall an' fo