advancing to the table where he was within
range of Racey's eyesight. "I spoke to you! What didja do it for?"

She raised her head and looked at him, the brush poised in one hand.
"---- you, Bull," she drawled at him. "I'm tellin' you, because I felt
like it."

Bull shot forth a hand and grabbed her right wrist. Marie, as a whole,
did not move. But her left hand dropped languidly and nestled in the
overhang of her bodice.

"Bull," she said, softly, staring straight into the evil eyes
glowering upon her. "Bull, bad as you are, you ain't never laid a hand
on me yet. You ain't gonna begin now, are you?"

Bull's great fingers began to tighten on her wrist, slowly,
inexorably.

"I'm sorry, Bull," she resumed, when he made no reply, "but I got a
derringer pointin' straight at yore stomach. Now you ain't gonna lemme
make a mess on my clean carpet, are you?"

Bull released her wrist as though it burnt him.

"You devil!" he exclaimed. "I believe you'd do it."

"Shore I would," she affirmed, serenely, dragging a small and ugly
derringer from its place of concealment and balancing it on a pink
palm. "I'll drill you in one blessed minute if you don't keep yore
paws to home. They's some things, Bull, you can't do to me. An' one
of them things is hurting me. I don't believe in corporal punishment,
Bull."

"I wanna know what you horned in for," he demanded, pounding the table
till the lamp danced again.

"If you only knowed what a silly fool you looked," she commented,
"you'd sit down and take it easy.... That's right, tell the
neighbours, do! Squawk out good and loud how yore bushwhackin' li'l
killing turned out a misdeal. Shore, I'd do that, if I was you. Whadda
you guess they pay Jake Rule an' Kansas Casey for, huh?"

"What did you get in front of him for?" Bull persisted in a lower
tone. "I pretty near had him, but you--Gawd, I could wring yore neck!"

"But you won't," she reminded him, sweetly. "Lookit here, Bull, if you
hadn't locked the door leading up the stairs to the Starlight's loft,
I'd 'a' come after you there and done my persuadin' of you right in
the loft. As it was when I heard what you were up to--nemmine how I
heard. I heard, that's enough--I had to go out in the street and
do what I could there. I don't believe the feller liked it much,
neither."

"But what's he to you? You ain't soft on him, are you, account of what
he done for that yellow mutt of yores?"

"I owe him something," she evaded. "Tha