unk enough of the hot stuff
to make me fall for the line you've been handing out."

He turned to Morgan.

"Mike, here, has been tryin' to make me believe that he knew a feller
who could drill a dollar at twenty yards every time it was tossed up."

The crowd laughed, Morgan loudest of all.

"Did you anyways have Whistlin' Dan in mind?" he asked.

"No, I didn't," said Mike, "an' I didn't say this here man I was
talkin' about could drill them every time. But he could do it two
times out of four."

"Mike," said Morgan, and he softened his disbelief with his smile and
the good-natured clap on the shoulder, "you sure must of been drinkin'
when you seen him do it. I allow Whistlin' Dan could do that an' more,
but he ain't human with a gun."

"How d'you know?" asked Jack, "I ain't ever seen him packin' a
six-gun."

"Sure you ain't," answered Morgan, "but I have, an' I seen him use it,
too. It was jest sort of by chance I saw it."

"Well," argued Mike anxiously, "then you allow it's possible if
Whistlin' Dan can do it. An' I say I seen a chap who could turn the
trick."

"An' who in hell is this Whistlin' Dan?" asked Jim Silent.

"He's the man that caught Satan, an' rode him," answered a bystander.

"Some man if he can ride the devil," laughed Lee Haines.

"I mean the black mustang that ran wild around here for a couple of
years. Some people tell tales about him being a wonder with a gun. But
Morgan's the only one who claims to have seen him work."

"Maybe you did see it, and maybe you didn't," Morgan was saying to
Mike noncommittally, "but there's some pretty fair shots in this
room, which I'd lay fifty bucks no man here could hit a dollar with a
six-gun at twenty paces."

"While they're arguin'," said Bill Kilduff, "I reckon I'll hit the
trail."

"Wait a minute," grinned Jim Silent, "an' watch me have some fun with
these short-horns."

He spoke more loudly: "Are you makin' that bet for the sake of
arguin', partner, or do you calculate to back it up with cold cash?"

Morgan whirled upon him with a scowl, "I ain't pulled a bluff in my
life that I can't back up!" he said sharply.

"Well," said Silent, "I ain't so flush that I'd turn down fifty bucks
when a kind Christian soul, as the preachers say, slides it into my
glove. Not me. Lead out the dollar, pal, an' kiss it farewell!"

"Who'll hold the stakes?" asked Morgan.

"Let your friend Mike," said Jim Silent carelessly, and he placed
fifty dollars in g