ll with emphasis. "You ought
to have killed him."

"Thanks to you I wasn't killed myself. I couldn't have hoped to get the
draw on him with my holster gun. He is as quick as a snake."

"I thought you were going to bungle it," said Randall. "What was the
matter?"

"Front sight caught at the edge of my sleeve. I had to tear it loose by
main strength. I'm going to file it off. What's the use of a front sight
at close range?"

I heaved a deep sigh.

"Well, I don't want ever to be so scared again," I confessed. "Will you
tell me, by all that's holy, _why_ you turned your back on the
door?"

"Well," said Johnny seriously, "I wanted to get him close to me. If I
had shown him that I'd seen him when he first came in the door, he'd
have opened fire at once. And I'm a rotten shot. But I figured that if
he thought I didn't see him, he'd come across the room to me."

"But he nearly got you by surprise."

"Oh, no," said Johnny; "I saw him all the time. I got his reflection
from the glass over that picture of the beautiful lady sitting on the
Old Crow Whiskey barrel. That's why I picked out that table."

"My son," cried Danny Randall delightedly, "you're a true sport. You've
got a head, you have!"

"Well," said Johnny, "I figured I'd have to do _something_; I'm
such a rotten shot."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

We slept late the following morning, and awoke tired, as though we had
been on a long journey.

"Now," said Johnny, when our after-breakfast pipes had been lit, "we've
got to get together. There's two serious questions before the house: the
first and most important is, who and what is Danny Randall?"

"I agree with you there," said I heartily.

"And the second is, what are we going to do with ourselves?"

"I'm going to begin mining," I stated.

"All right, old strong-arm; I am not. I'm dead sick of cricking my back
and blistering my hands. It isn't my kind of work; and the only reason I
ever thought it was is because the stuff we dig is called gold."

"You aren't going to lie down?" I cried incredulously.

"No, old sport, I'm not going to lie down. I came out here to make my
fortune; but I don't know that I've got to dig gold to do that."

"What are you going to do?"

"That I don't know," confessed Johnny, "but I'll be able to inform you
in a few days. I suppose you'll be going back to the Porcupine?"

"I don't know about that," said I seriously. "I don't believe the
Porcupine is a