o hand over the money, when he would make a dash for the door and
ride away.

Mackenzie stood close to the window, pistol lifted, thinking it all
out between Reid's last word and Carlson's next, for the mind can
build a castle while the heart is pausing between throbs.

"My woman for yours, that's a fair trade," said Swan. "I don't want to
put no money in a wild colt that maybe I couldn't break. Open the door
and bring her to me, and take my woman and go."

"Nothing doin'," said Reid, regaining his nonchalance, or at any rate
control of his shaking voice.

"You're a liar, you ain't got no woman here."

"She's in there, all right--come across with the money and take her."

"How do I know you've got any right to make a trade? Have you got the
papers to show she's yours?"

"I've got all the papers you'll ever need."

"You ain't got no papers--she's as much mine as she is yours. Open the
door!"

Carlson got up, towering above Reid in his great height. He took off
his hat and flung it on the table, stood a little while bending
forward in his peculiar loose droop with arms swinging full length at
his sides. Reid backed away from him, standing with shoulders against
the door as if to deny him passage, hand thrown to his empty holster.

"You ain't got no gun!" Swan said, triumphantly. "I seen the minute I
come in the door you didn't have no gun. I wouldn't fight a feller
like you--you couldn't stand up to me like that other feller done here
in this house one night."

Swan looked round the room, the memory of that battle like a light
upon his stony face. He stood in silence, turning his head slowly, as
if he found a pleasure in the stages of the past battle as recalled to
him by the different locations in the place.

"You wanted me to kill that feller so he couldn't take your woman away
from you, didn't you?" Swan said, contemptuously. "Over there that day
me and you made that joke on him runnin' my sheep over into his. But
he didn't take that joke--what? He stood up to me and fought me like
an old bear, and he'd 'a' whipped me another time if it hadn't been
for them dogs helpin' me. You bet your hat he would! Yes, and then you
come up, and you said to me: 'Soak him another one!' And I looked at
you, with red in my eyes. 'Soak him, put him out for good this time!'
you says. And I looked at you another time, my eye as red as blood.

"'No,' I says, 'damn your skin, I'll not soak him when he's down, and
you'll not d