through the future, but the present need blinded him to
what might come.

He said: "Suppose I stop raising questions or making a fight, but give
you my hand and call myself a member----"

"Of the family? Exactly. If you did that I'd know it was because you
were wantin' something, Pierre, eh?"

"Two things."

"Lad, I like this way of talk. One--two--you hit quick like a two-gun
man. Well, I'm used to paying high for what I get. What's up?"

"The first----"

"Wait. Can I help you out by myself, or do you need the gang?"

"The gang."

"Then come, and I'll put it up to them. You first."

It was equally courtesy and caution, and Pierre smiled faintly as he
went first through the door. He stood in a moment under the eyes of
five silent men.

The booming voice of Jim Boone pronounced:

"This is Pierre. He'll be one of us if he can get the gang to do two
things. I ask you, will you hear him for me, and then pass on whether
or not you try his game?"

They nodded. There were no greetings to acknowledge the introduction.
They waited, eyeing the youth with distrust.

Pierre eyed them in turn, and then he spoke directly to big Dick Wilbur.

"Here's the first: I want to bury a man in Morgantown and I need help
to do it."

Black Gandil snarled: "You heard me, boys; blood to start with. Who's
the man you want us to put out?"

"He's dead--my father."

They came up straight in their chairs like trained actors rising to a
stage crisis. The snarl straightened on the lips of Black Morgan
Gandil.

"He's lying in his house a few miles out of Morgantown. As he died he
told me that he wanted to be buried in a corner plot in the Morgantown
graveyard. He'd seen the place and counted it for his a good many
years because he said the grass grew quicker there than any other
place, after the snow went."

"A damned good reason," said Garry Patterson. As the idea stuck more
deeply into his imagination he smashed his fist down on the table so
that the crockery on it danced. "A damned good reason, say I!"

"Who's your father?" asked Dick Wilbur, who eyed Pierre more critically
but with less enmity than the rest.

"Martin Ryder."

"A ringer!" cried Bud Mansie, and he leaned forward alertly. "You
remember what I said, Jim?"

"Shut up. Pierre, talk soft and talk quick. We all know Mart Ryder
had only two sons and you're not either of them."

The Northerner grew stiff and as his face grew pale the red mark