r of his mouth. The scratch of the match roused him and quick
as a flash he reached beneath the bar and the next instant had Purdy
covered with a six-shooter. With his finger on the trigger Cinnabar
Joe hesitated, and in that instant he learned that the man that faced
him across the bar was as brave as he was unscrupulous. The fingers
that twisted the little cylinder of paper never faltered and the black
eyes looked straight into the muzzle of the gun.

Now, in the cow country the drawing of a gun is one and the same
movement with the firing of it, and why Cinnabar Joe hesitated he did
not know.

Purdy laughed: "Put her down, Cinnabar. Yeh won't shoot, now. Yeh
see, I kind of figgered yeh might be sort o' riled up, so I left my gun
in my slicker. Shootin' a unarmed man don't git yeh nothin' but a
chanct to stretch a rope."

The bartender returned the gun to its place. "Where'd you git that
dope, Jack?" he asked, in a dull voice.

"Well, seein' as yeh hain't so blood-thirsty no more, I'll tell yeh. I
swung down into the bad lands couple weeks ago huntin' a bunch of mares
that strayed off the south slope. I was follerin' down a mud-crack
that opens into Big Dry when all to onct my horse jumps sideways an'
like to got me. The reason fer which was a feller layin' on the ground
where his horse had busted him agin' a rock. His back was broke an' he
was mumblin'; which he must of laid there a day, mebbe two, cause his
tongue an' lips was dried up till I couldn't hardly make out what he
was sayin'. I catched here an' there a word about holdin' up a train
an' he was mumblin' your name now an' agin so I fetched some water from
a hole a mile away an' camped. He et a little bacon later but he was
half crazy with the pain in his back. He'd yell when I walked near him
on the ground, said it jarred him, an' when I tried to move him a
little he fainted plumb away. But he come to agin an' begged me fer to
hand him his Colt that had lit about ten feet away so he could finish
the job. I seen they wasn't no use tryin' to git him nowheres. He was
all in. But his mutterin' had interested me consid'ble. I figgers if
he's a hold-up, chances is he's got a nice fat _cache_ hid away
somewheres, an' seein' he hain't never goin' to need it I might's well
have the handlin' of it as let it rot where it's at. I tells him so
an' agrees that if he tips off his _cache_ to me I'll retaliate by
givin' him the gun. He swears he ain'