g, and it will be figured the boy was
hit by one of the train crew. Nothing could be easier."

"If it worked out right."

"Couldn't help working out right. That's why Soapy didn't let me in on the
proposition. To get rid of one would be no great trouble, but two--well,
that's different. Besides, I could tell he was not sure of me. Now he aims
to put me on the stand and prove by me that Sam and he had a quarrel and
parted company mighty sore at each other hardly a week before the hold-up.
He'll have an alibi too to show he couldn't have been in it. You'll see."

"You wouldn't think a white man could take a revenge like that on his
enemy. It's an awful thing to do in cold blood."

"Soapy is no white man. He's a wolf. See how slick his scheme is. At one
flip of the cards he kills the kid and damns his reputation. He scores
Cullison and he snuffs out Sam, who had had the luck to win the girl Soapy
fancies. The boy gets his and the girl is shown she can't love another man
than Stone."

"Ever hear the story of French Dan?" asked Slats.

"Not to know the right of it."

"Soapy and Dan trained together in them days and went through a lot of
meanness as side pardners. One day the Arivaca stage was held up by two
men and the driver killed. In the scrap one of the men had his mask torn
off. It was French Dan. Well, the outlaws had been too damned busy. Folks
woke up and the hills were sprinkled with posses. They ran the fellows
down and hunted them from place to place. Two--three times they almost
nailed them. Shots were exchanged. A horse of one of the fugitives was
killed and they could not get another. Finally one dark night the outlaws
were surrounded. The posse lay down in the zacaton and waited for morning.
In the night one of them heard a faint sound like the popping of a cork.
When mo'ning broke the hunters crept forward through the thick grass.
Guess what they found."

Curly's answer was prompt. "Gimme a harder one. There were two men and
only one horse. The only chance was to slip through the line before day
arrived. My guess is that they found French Dan with a little round hole
in his skull--_and that the bullet making it had gone in from behind_. My
guess also is that the posse didn't find the horse and the other man, just
a trail through the zacaton back into the hills."

"Go to the head of the class. There was one man too many in that thicket
for the horse. French Dan's pardner was afraid they might not agre