n the gun-stuff," said Brandes. "I'm not for it. It's punk."

"What's punk?"

"Gun-play."

"Didn't you pull a pop on Maxy Venem the night him and Hyman Adams and
Minna beat you up in front of the Knickerbocker?"

"Eddie was stalling," interrupted Stull, as Brandes' face turned a
dull beef-red. "You talk like a bad actor, Doc. There's other ways of
getting Max in wrong. Guns ain't what they was once. Gun-play is old
stuff. But listen, now. Quint has staked us and we gotta make good.
And this is a big thing, though it looks like it was out of our
line."

"Go on; what's the idea?" inquired Curfoot, interested.

Brandes, the dull red still staining his heavy face, watched the
flying landscape from the open window.

Stull leaned forward; Curfoot bent his lean, narrow head nearer;
Neeland, staring fixedly at his open book, pricked up his ears.

"Now," said Stull in a low voice, "I'll tell you guys all Eddie and I
know about this here business of Captain Quint's. It's like this,
Doc: Some big feller comes to Quint after they close him up--he won't
tell who--and puts up this here proposition: Quint is to open a
elegant place in Paris on the Q. T. In fact, it's ready now. There'll
be all the backing Quint needs. He's to send over three men he can
trust--three men who can shoot at a pinch! He picks us three and
stakes us. Get me?"

Doc nodded.

Brandes said in his narrow-eyed, sleepy way:

"There was a time when they called us gunmen--Ben and me. But, so help
me God, Doc, we never did any work like that ourselves. We never fired
a shot to croak any living guy. Did we, Ben?"

"All right," said Stull impatiently. And, to Curfoot: "Eddie and I
know what we're to do. If it's on the cards that we shoot--well, then,
we'll shoot. The place is to be small, select, private, and first
class. Doc, you act as capper. You deal, too. Eddie sets 'em up. I
deal or spin. All right. We three guys attend to anything American
that blows our way. Get that?"

Curfoot nodded.

"Then for the foreigners, there's to be a guy called Karl Breslau."

Neeland managed to repress a start, but the blood tingled in his
cheeks, and he turned his head a trifle as though seeking better light
on the open pages in his hands.

"This here man Breslau," continued Stull, "speaks all kinds of
languages. He is to have two friends with him, a fellow named Kestner
and one called Weishelm. They trim the foreigners, they do; and----"

"Well, I don't see n