hoolboys caught by their master in a conspiracy. How long had he been
there? How much had he heard? Full of suspicion and bad whisky as they
were, his confident contempt still cowed the very men who were planning
his destruction. A minute before they had been full of loud threats and
boastings; now they could only search each other's faces sullenly for a
cue.

"Celebrating Chaves' return from manana land, I reckon. That's the
proper ticket. I wonder if we couldn't afford to kill another of
Collins' fatted calves."

Mr. Hardman, not enjoying the derisive raillery, took a hand in the
game. "I expect the boys hadn't better touch the sheriff's calves, now
you and him are so thick."

"We're thick, are we?" Leroy's indolent eyes narrowed slightly as they
rested on him.

"Ain't you? It sure seemed that way to me when I looked out of that
mesquit wash just above Eldorado Springs and seen you and him eating
together like brothers and laughing to beat the band. You was so clost
to him I couldn't draw a bead on him without risking its hitting you."

"Spying, eh?"

"If that's the word you want to use, cap. And you were enjoying
yourselves proper."

"Laughing, were we? That must have been when he told me how funny you
looked in the 'altogether' shedding false teeth and information about
hidden treasure."

"Told you that, did he?" Mr. Hardman incontinently dropped repartee as a
weapon too subtle, and fell back on profanity.

"That's right pat to the minute, cap, what you say about the information
he leaks," put in Neil. "How about that information? I'll be plumb
tickled to death to know you're carrying it in you vest pocket."

"And if I'm not?"

"Then ye are a bigger fool than I had expected sorr, to come back here
at all," said the Irishman truculently.

"I begin to think so myself, Mr. Reilly. Why keep faith with a set of
swine like you?"

"Are you giving it to us that you haven't got those papers?"

Leroy nodded, watching them with steady, alert eyes. He knew he stood on
the edge of a volcano that might explode at any moment.

"What did I tell yez?" Reilly turned savagely to the other disaffected
members of the gang. "Didn't I tell yez he was selling us out?"

Somehow Leroy's revolver seemed to jump to his hand without a motion on
his part. It lay loosely in his limp fingers, unaimed and undirected.

"SAY THAT AGAIN, PLEASE."

Beneath the velvet of Leroy's voice ran a note more deadly than any
threat could