Strong nodded.

"Well, I must say you folks have queer notions about this country. Danby, who was going for a three days' journey across the plains, bought himself two Colts revolvers, and a knife half as long as my arm. Now I've travelled all over this State, and never carried a gun, but I couldn't get Danby to believe his route was as safe as a church. Of course, now and then in Texas a cowboy shoots off his gun, but it's more often his mouth, and I don't believe there's more killing done in Texas than in any other bit of land the same size. But you can't get an Englishman to believe that. You folks are an awful law-abiding crowd. For my part I would sooner stand my chance with a revolver than a lawsuit any day." Then the good-natured Texan told the story of the pistol in Texas; of the general lack of demand for it, but the great necessity of having it handy when it was called for.

A man with murder in his heart should not hold a conversation like this, but William Strong was too full of one idea to think of prudence. Such a talk sets the hounds of justice on the right trail, with unpleasant results for the criminal.

On Thursday morning Strong set out on horse-back from Broncho Junction with his face towards Felixopolis. By noon he said to himself he ought to meet his former partner with nothing but the horizon around them. Besides the revolvers in his belt, Strong had a Winchester rifle in front of him. He did not know but he might have to shoot at long range, and it was always well to prepare for eventualities. Twelve o'clock came, but he met no one, and there was nothing in sight around the empty circle of the horizon. It was nearly two before he saw a moving dot ahead of him. Danby was evidently unused to riding and had come leisurely. Some time before they met, Strong recognised his former partner and he got his rifle ready.

"Throw up your hands!" he shouted, bringing his rifle butt to his shoulder.

Danby instantly raised his hands above his head. "I have no money on me," he cried, evidently not recognising his opponent. "You may search me if you like."

"Get down off your horse; don't lower your hands, or I fire."

Danby got down, as well as he could, with his hands above his head. Strong had thrown his right leg over to the left side of the horse, and, as his enemy got down, he also slid to the ground, keeping Danby covered with the rifle.

"I assure you I have only a few dollars with me, which you are quite welcome to," said Danby.

Strong did not answer. Seeing that the firing was to be at short range, he took a six-shooter from his belt, and, cocking it, covered his man, throwing the rifle on the grass. He walked up to his enemy, placed the muzzle of the revolver against his rapidly beating heart, and leisurely disarmed him, throwing Danby's weapons on the ground out of reach. Then he stood back a few paces and looked at the trembling man. His face seemed to have already taken on the hue of death and his lips were bloodless.

"I see you recognise me at last, Mr. Danby. This is an unexpected meeting, is it not? You realise, I hope, that there are here no judges, juries, nor lawyers, no mandamuses and no appeals. Nothing but a writ of ejectment from the barrel of a pistol and no legal way of staying the proceedings. In other words, no cursed quibbles and no damned law."

Danby, after several times moistening his pallid lips, found his voice.

"Do you mean to give me a chance, or are you going to murder me?"

"I am going to murder you."

Danby closed his eyes, let his hands drop to his sides, and swayed gently from side to side as a man does on the scaffold just before the bolt is drawn. Strong lowered his revolver and fired, shattering one knee of the doomed man. Danby dropped with a cry that was drowned by the second report. The second bullet put out his left eye, and the murdered man lay with his mutilated face turned up to the blue sky.

A revolver report on the prairies is short, sharp, and echoless. The silence that followed seemed intense and boundless, as if nowhere on earth there was such a thing as sound. The man on his back gave an awesome touch of the eternal to the stillness.

Strong, now that it was all over, began to realise his position. Texas, perhaps, paid too little heed to life lost in fair fight, but she had an uncomfortable habit of putting a rope round the neck of a cowardly murderer. Strong was an inventor by nature. He proceeded to invent his justification. He took one of Danby's revolvers and fired two shots out of it into the empty air. This would show that the dead man had defended himself at least, and it would be difficult to prove that he had not been the first to fire. He placed the other pistol and the knife in their places in Danby's belt. He took Danby's right hand while it was still warm and closed the fingers around the butt of the revolver from which he had fired, placing the forefinger on the trigger of the cocked six-shooter. To give effect and naturalness to the tableau he was arranging for the benefit of the next traveller by that trail, he drew up the right knee and put revolver and closed hand on it as if Danby had been killed while just about to fire his third shot.

Strong, with the pride of a true artist in his work, stepped back a pace or two for the purpose of seeing the effect of his work as a whole. As Danby fell, the back of his head had struck a lump of soil or a tuft of grass which threw the chin forward on the breast. As Strong looked at his victim his heart jumped, and a sort of hypnotic fear took possession of him and paralysed action at its source. Danby was not yet dead. His right eye was open, and it glared at Strong with a malice and hatred that mesmerised the murderer and held him there, although he felt rather than knew he was covered by the cocked revolver he had placed in what he thought was a dead hand. Danby's lips moved but no sound came from them. Strong could not take his fascinated gaze from the open eye. He knew he was a dead man if Danby had strength to crook his finger, yet he could not take the leap that would bring him out of range. The fifth pistol-shot rang out and Strong pitched forward on his face.

The firm of Danby and Strong was dissolved.



A MODERN SAMSON.

A little more and Jean Rasteaux would have been a giant. Brittany men are small as a rule, but Jean was an exception. He was a powerful young fellow who, up to the time he was compelled to enter the army, had spent his life in dragging heavy nets over the sides of a boat. He knew the Brittany coast, rugged and indented as it is, as well as he knew the road from the little cafe on the square to the dwelling of his father on the hillside overlooking the sea. Never before had he been out of sound of the waves. He was a man who, like Herve Riel, might have saved the fleet, but France, with the usual good sense of officialism, sent this man of the coast into the mountains, and Jean Rasteaux became a soldier in the Alpine Corps. If he stood on the highest mountain peak, Jean might look over illimitable wastes of snow, but he could catch neither sound nor sight of the sea.

Men who mix with mountains become as rough and rugged as the rocks, and the Alpine Corps was a wild body, harsh and brutal. Punishment in the ranks was swift and terrible, for the corps was situated far from any of the civilising things of modern life, and deeds were done which the world knew not of; deeds which would not have been approved if reported at headquarters.

The regiment of which Jean became a unit was stationed in a high valley that had but one outlet, a wild pass down which a mountain river roared and foamed and tossed. The narrow path by the side of this stream was the only way out of or into the valley, for all around, the little plateau was walled in by immense peaks of everlasting snow, dazzling in the sunlight, and luminous even in the still, dark nights. From the peaks to the south, Italy might have been seen, but no man had ever dared to climb any of them. The angry little river was fed from a glacier whose blue breast lay sparkling in the sunshine to the south, and the stream circumnavigated the enclosed plateau, as if trying to find an outlet for its tossing waters.

Jean was terribly lonely in these dreary and unaccustomed solitudes. The white mountains awed him, and the mad roar of the river seemed but poor compensation for the dignified measured thunder of the waves on the broad sands of the Brittany coast.

But Jean was a good-natured giant, and he strove to do whatever was required of him. He was not quick at repartee, and the men mocked his Breton dialect. He became the butt for all their small and often mean jokes, and from the first he was very miserable, for, added to his yearning for the sea, whose steady roar he heard in his dreams at night, he felt the utter lack of all human sympathy.

At first he endeavoured, by unfailing good nature and prompt obedience, to win the regard of his fellows, and he became in a measure the slave of the regiment; but the more he tried to please the more his burden increased, and the greater were the insults he was compelled to bear from both officers and men. It was so easy to bully this giant, whom they nicknamed Samson, that even the smallest men in the regiment felt at liberty to swear at him or cuff him if necessary.

But at last Samson's good nature seemed to be wearing out. His stock was becoming exhausted, and his comrades forgot that the Bretons for hundreds of years have been successful fighters, and that the blood of contention flows in their veins.

Although the Alpine Corps, as a general thing, contain the largest and strongest men in the French Army, yet the average French soldier may be termed undersized when compared with the military of either England or Germany. There were several physically small men in the regiment, and one of these, like a diminutive gnat, was Samson's worst persecutor. As there was no other man in the regiment whom the gnat could bully, Samson received more than even he could be expected to bear. One day the gnat ordered Samson to bring him a pail of water from the stream, and the big man unhesitatingly obeyed. He spilled some of it coming up the bank, and when he delivered it to the little man, the latter abused him for not bringing the pail full, and as several of the larger soldiers, who had all in their turn made Samson miserable, were standing about, the little man picked up the pail of water and dashed it into Samson's face. It was such a good opportunity for showing off before the big men, who removed their pipes from their mouths and laughed loudly as Samson with his knuckles tried to take the water out of his eyes. Then Samson did an astonishing thing.

"You miserable, little insignificant rat," he cried. "I could crush you, but you are not worth it. But to show you that I am not afraid of any of you, there, and there!"

As he said these two words with emphasis, he struck out from the shoulder, not at the little man, but at the two biggest men in the regiment, and felled them like logs to the ground.

A cry of rage went up from their comrades, but bullies are cowards at heart, and while Samson glared around at them, no one made a move.

The matter was reported to the officer, and Samson was placed under arrest. When the inquiry was held the officer expressed his astonishment at the fact that Samson hit two men who had nothing to do with the insult he had received, while the real culprit had been allowed to go unpunished.

"They deserved it," said Samson, sullenly, "for what they had done before. I could not strike the little man. I should have killed him."

"Silence!" cried the officer. "You must not answer me like that."

"I shall answer you as I like," said Samson, doggedly.

The officer sprang to his feet, with a lithe rattan cane in his hand, and struck the insubordinate soldier twice across the face, each time raising an angry red mark.

Before the guards had time to interfere, Samson sprang upon the officer, lifted him like a child above his head, and dashed him with a sickening crash to the ground, where he lay motionless.

A cry of horror went up from every one present.

"I have had enough," cried Samson, turning to go, but he was met by a bristling hedge of steel. He was like a rat in a trap. He stood defiantly there, a man maddened by oppression, and glared around helplessly.

Whatever might have been his punishment for striking his comrades, there was no doubt now about his fate. The guard-house was a rude hut of logs situated on the banks of the roaring stream. Into this room Samson was flung, bound hand and foot, to await the court-martial next day. The shattered officer, whose sword had broken in pieces under him, slowly revived and was carried to his quarters. A sentry marched up and down all night before the guard-house.

In the morning, when Samson was sent for, the guard-house was found to be empty. The huge Breton had broken his bonds as did Samson of old. He had pushed out a log of wood from the wall, and had squeezed himself through to the bank of the stream. There all trace of him was lost. If he had fallen in, then of course he had sentenced and executed himself, but in the mud near the water were great footprints which no boot but that of Samson could have made; so if he were in the stream it must have been because he threw himself there. The trend of the footprints, however, indicated that he had climbed on the rocks, and there, of course, it was impossible to trace him. The sentries who guarded the pass maintained that no one had gone through during the night, but to make sure several men were sent down the path to overtake the runaway. Even if he reached a town or a village far below, so huge a man could not escape notice. The searchers were instructed to telegraph his description and his crime as soon as they reached a telegraph wire. It was impossible to hide in the valley, and a rapid search speedily convinced the officers that the delinquent was not there.

As the sun rose higher and higher, until it began to shine even on the northward-facing snow fields, a sharp-eyed private reported that he saw a black speck moving high up on the great white slope south of the valley. The officer called for a field-glass, and placing it to his eyes, examined the snow carefully.

"Call out a detachment," he said, "that is Samson on the mountain."

There was a great stir in the camp when the truth became known. Emissaries were sent after the searchers down the pass, calling them to return.

"He thinks to get to Italy," said the officer. "I did not imagine the fool knew so much of geography. We have him now secure enough."

The officer who had been flung over Samson's head was now able to hobble about, and he was exceedingly bitter. Shading his eyes and gazing at the snow, he said—

"A good marksman ought to be able to bring him down."

"There is no need of that," replied his superior. "He cannot escape. We have nothing to do but to wait for him. He will have to come down."

All of which was perfectly true.

A detachment crossed the stream and stacked its arms at the foot of the mountain which Samson was trying to climb. There was a small level place a few yards wide between the bottom of the hill and the bank of the raging stream. On this bit of level ground the soldiers lay in the sun and smoked, while the officers stood in a group and watched the climbing man going steadily upward.

For a short distance up from the plateau there was stunted grass and moss, with dark points of rock protruding from the scant soil. Above that again was a breadth of dirty snow which, now that the sun was strong, sent little trickling streams down to the river. From there to the long ridge of the mountain extended upwards the vast smooth slope of virgin snow, pure and white, sparkling in the strong sunlight as if it had been sprinkled with diamond dust. A black speck against this tremendous field of white, the giant struggled on, and they could see by the glass that he sunk to the knee in the softening snow.

"Now," said the officer, "he is beginning to understand his situation."

Through the glass they saw Samson pause. From below it seemed as if the snow were as smooth as a sloping roof, but even to the naked eye a shadow crossed it near the top. That shadow was a tremendous ridge of overhanging snow more than a hundred feet deep; and Samson now paused as he realised that it was insurmountable. He looked down and undoubtedly saw a part of the regiment waiting for him below. He turned and plodded slowly under the overhanging ridge until he came to the precipice at his left. It was a thousand feet sheer down. He retraced his steps and walked to the similar precipice at the right. Then he came again to the middle of the great T which his footmarks had made on that virgin slope. He sat down in the snow.

No one will ever know what a moment of despair the Breton must have passed through when he realised the hopelessness of his toil.

The officer who was gazing through the glass at him dropped his hand to his side and laughed.

"The nature of the situation," he said, "has at last dawned upon him. It took a long time to get an appreciation of it through his thick Breton skull."

"Let me have the glass a moment," said another. "He has made up his mind about something."

The officer did not realise the full significance of what he saw through the glass. In spite of their conceit, their skulls were thicker than that of the persecuted Breton fisherman.

Samson for a moment turned his face to the north and raised his face towards heaven. Whether it was an appeal to the saints he believed in, or an invocation to the distant ocean he was never more to look upon, who can tell?

After a moment's pause he flung himself headlong down the slope towards the section of the regiment which lounged on the bank of the river. Over and over he rolled, and then in place of the black figure there came downwards a white ball, gathering bulk at every bound.

It was several seconds before the significance of what they were gazing at burst upon officers and men. It came upon them simultaneously, and with it a wild panic of fear. In the still air a low sullen roar arose.

"An avalanche! An avalanche!!" they cried.

The men and officers were hemmed in by the boiling torrent. Some of them plunged in to get to the other side, but the moment the water laid hold of them their heels were whirled into the air, and they disappeared helplessly down the rapids.

Samson was hours going up the mountain, but only seconds coming down. Like an overwhelming wave came the white crest of the avalanche, sweeping officers and men into and over the stream and far across the plateau.

There was one mingled shriek which made itself heard through the sullen roar of the snow, then all was silence. The hemmed-in waters rose high and soon forced its way through the white barrier.

When the remainder of the regiment dug out from the debris the bodies of their comrades they found a fixed look of the wildest terror on every face except one. Samson himself, without an unbroken bone in his body, slept as calmly as if he rested under the blue waters on the coast of Brittany.



A DEAL ON 'CHANGE

It was in the days when drawing-rooms were dark, and filled with bric- a-brac. The darkness enabled the half-blinded visitor, coming in out of the bright light, to knock over gracefully a $200 vase that had come from Japan to meet disaster in New York.

In a corner of the room was seated, in a deep and luxurious armchair, a most beautiful woman. She was the wife of the son of the richest man in America; she was young; her husband was devotedly fond of her; she was mistress of a palace; anything that money could buy was hers did she but express the wish; but she was weeping softly, and had just made up her mind that she was the most miserable creature in all the land.

If a stranger had entered the room he would first have been impressed by the fact that he was looking at the prettiest woman he had ever seen; then he would have been haunted by the idea that he had met her somewhere before. If he were a man moving in artistic circles he might perhaps remember that he had seen her face looking down at him from various canvases in picture exhibitions, and unless he were a stranger to the gossip of the country he could hardly help recollecting the dreadful fuss the papers made, as if it were any business of theirs, when young Ed. Druce married the artists' model, celebrated for her loveliness.

Every one has read the story of that marriage; goodness knows, the papers made the most of it, as is their custom. Young Ed., who knew much more of the world than did his father, expected stern opposition, and, knowing the unlimited power unlimited wealth gave to the old man, he did not risk an interview with his parent, but eloped with the girl. The first inkling old man Druce had of the affair was from a vivid sensational account of the runaway in an evening paper. He was pictured in the paper as an implacable father who was at that moment searching for the elopers with a shot gun. Old Druce had been too often the central figure of a journalistic sensation to mind what the sheet said. He promptly telegraphed all over the country, and, getting into communication with his son, asked him (electrically) as a favour to bring his young wife home, and not make a fool of himself. So the errant pair, much relieved, came back to New York.

Old Druce was a taciturn man, even with his only son. He wondered at first that the boy should have so misjudged him as to suppose he would raise objections, no matter whom the lad wished to marry. He was bewildered rather than enlightened when Ed. told him he feared opposition because the girl was poor. What difference on earth did that make? Had he not money enough for all of them? If not, was there any trouble in adding to their store? Were there not railroads to be wrecked; stockholders to be fleeced; Wall Street lambs to be shorn? Surely a man married to please himself and not to make money. Ed. assured the old man that cases had been known where a suspicion of mercenary motives had hovered round a matrimonial alliance, but Druce expressed the utmost contempt for such a state of things.

At first Ella had been rather afraid of her silent father-in-law, whose very name made hundreds tremble and thousands curse, but she soon discovered that the old man actually stood in awe of her, and that his apparent brusqueness was the mere awkwardness he felt when in her presence. He was anxious to please her, and worried himself wondering whether there was anything she wanted.

One day he fumblingly dropped a cheque for a million dollars in her lap, and, with some nervous confusion, asked her to run out, like a good girl, and buy herself something; if that wasn't enough, she was to call on him for more. The girl sprang from her chair and threw her arms around his neck, much to the old man's embarrassment, who was not accustomed to such a situation. She kissed him in spite of himself, allowing the cheque to flutter to the floor, the most valuable bit of paper floating around loose in America that day.

When he reached his office he surprised his son. He shook his fist in the young fellow's face, and said sternly—

"If you ever say a cross word to that little girl, I'll do what I've never done yet—I'll thrash you!"

The young man laughed.

"All right, father. I'll deserve a thrashing in that case."

The old man became almost genial whenever he thought of his pretty daughter-in-law. "My little girl," he always called her. At first, Wall Street men said old Druce was getting into his dotage, but when a nip came in the market and they found that, as usual, the old man was on the right side of the fence, they were compelled reluctantly to admit, with emptier pockets, that the dotage had not yet interfered with the financial corner of old Druce's mind.

As young Mrs. Druce sat disconsolately in her drawing-room, the curtains parted gently, and her father-in-law entered stealthily, as if he were a thief, which indeed he was, and the very greatest of them. Druce had small, shifty piercing eyes that peered out from under his grey bushy eyebrows like two steel sparks. He never seemed to be looking directly at any one, and his eyes somehow gave you the idea that they were trying to glance back over his shoulder, as if he feared pursuit. Some said that old Druce was in constant terror of assassination, while others held that he knew the devil was on his track and would ultimately nab him.

"I pity the devil when that day comes," young Sneed said once when some one had made the usual remark about Druce. This echoed the general feeling prevalent in Wall Street regarding the encounter that was admitted by all to be inevitable.

The old man stopped in the middle of the room when he noticed that his daughter-in-law was crying.

"Dear, dear!" he said; "what is the matter? Has Edward been saying anything cross to you?"

"No, papa," answered the girl. "Nobody could be kinder to me than Ed. is. There is nothing really the matter." Then, to put the truth of her statement beyond all question, she began to cry afresh.

The old man sat down beside her, taking one hand in his own. "Money?" he asked in an eager whisper that seemed to say he saw a solution of the difficulty if it were financial.

"Oh dear no. I have all the money, and more, that anyone can wish."

The old man's countenance fell. If money would not remedy the state of things, then he was out of his depth.

"Won't you tell me the trouble? Perhaps I can suggest——"

"It's nothing you can help in, papa. It is nothing much, any way. The Misses Sneed won't call on me, that's all."

The old man knit his brows and thoughtfully scratched his chin.

"Won't call?" he echoed helplessly.

"No. They think I'm not good enough to associate with them, I suppose."

The bushy eyebrows came down until they almost obscured the eyes, and a dangerous light seemed to scintillate out from under them.

"You must be mistaken. Good gracious, I am worth ten times what old Sneed is. Not good enough? Why, my name on a cheque is——"

"It isn't a question of cheques, papa," wailed the girl; "it's a question of society. I was a painter's model before I married Ed., and, no matter how rich I am, society won't have anything to do with me."

The old man absent-mindedly rubbed his chin, which was a habit he had when perplexed. He was face to face with a problem entirely outside his province. Suddenly a happy thought struck him.

"Those Sneed women!" he said in tones of great contempt, "what do they amount to, anyhow? They're nothing but sour old maids. They never were half so pretty as you. Why should you care whether they called on you or not."

"They represent society. If they came, others would."

"But society can't have anything against you. Nobody has ever said a word against your character, model or no model."

The girl shook her head hopelessly.

"Character does not count in society."

In this statement she was of course absurdly wrong, but she felt bitter at all the world. Those who know society are well aware that character counts for everything within its sacred precincts. So the unjust remark should not be set down to the discredit of an inexperienced girl.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," cried the old man, brightening up. "I'll speak to Gen. Sneed to-morrow. I'll arrange the whole business in five minutes."

"Do you think that would do any good?" asked young Mrs. Druce, dubiously.

"Good? You bet it'll do good! It will settle the whole thing. I've helped Sneed out of a pinch before now, and he'll fix up a little matter like that for me in no time. I'll just have a quiet talk with the General to-morrow, and you'll see the Sneed carriage at the door next day at the very latest." He patted her smooth white hand affectionately. "So don't you trouble, little girl, about trifles; and whenever you want help, you just tell the old man. He knows a thing or two yet, whether it is on Wall Street or Fifth Avenue."

Sneed was known in New York as the General, probably because he had absolutely no military experience whatever. Next to Druce he had the most power in the financial world of America, but there was a great distance between the first and the second. If it came to a deal in which the General and all the world stood against Druce, the average Wall Street man would have bet on Druce against the whole combination. Besides this, the General had the reputation of being a "square" man, and that naturally told against him, for every one knew that Druce was utterly unscrupulous. But if Druce and Sneed were known to be together in a deal, then the financial world of New York ran for shelter. Therefore when New York saw old Druce come in with the stealthy tread of a two-legged leopard and glance furtively around the great room, singling out Sneed with an almost imperceptible side nod, retiring with him into a remote corner where more ruin had been concocted than on any other spot on earth, and talking there eagerly with him, a hush fell on the vast assemblage of men, and for the moment the financial heart of the nation ceased to beat. When they saw Sneed take out his note-book, nodding assent to whatever proposition Druce was making, a cold shiver ran up the financial backbone of New York; the shiver communicated itself to the electric nerve-web of the world, and storm signals began to fly in the monetary centres of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Uncertainty paralysed the markets of the earth because two old gamblers were holding a whispered conversation with a multitude of men watching them out of the corners of their eyes.

"I'd give half a million to know what those two old fiends are concocting," said John P. Buller, the great wheat operator; and he meant it; which goes to show that a man does not really know what he wants, and would be very dissatisfied if he got it.

"Look here, General," said Druce, "I want you to do me a favour."

"All right," replied the General. "I'm with you."

"It's about my little girl," continued Druce, rubbing his chin, not knowing just how to explain matters in the cold financial atmosphere of the place in which they found themselves.

"Oh! About Ed.'s wife," said Sneed, looking puzzled.

"Yes. She's fretting her heart out because your two girls won't call upon her. I found her crying about it yesterday afternoon."

"Won't call?" cried the General, a bewildered look coming over his face. "Haven't they called yet? You see, I don't bother much about that sort of thing."

"Neither do I. No, they haven't called. I don't suppose they mean anything by it, but my little girl thinks they do, so I said I would speak to you about it."

"Well, I'm glad you did. I'll see to that the moment I get home. What time shall I tell them to call?" The innocent old man, little comprehending what he was promising, pulled out his note-book and pencil, looking inquiringly at Druce.

"Oh, I don't know. Any time that is convenient for them. I suppose women know all about that. My little girl is at home most all afternoon, I guess."

The two men cordially shook hands, and the market instantly collapsed.

It took three days for the financial situation to recover its tone. Druce had not been visible, and that was all the more ominous. The older operators did not relax their caution, because the blow had not yet fallen. They shook their heads, and said the cyclone would be all the worse when it came.

Old Druce came among them the third day, and there was a set look about his lips which students of his countenance did not like. The situation was complicated by the evident fact that the General was trying to avoid him. At last, however, this was no longer possible, the two men met, and after a word or two they walked up and down together. Druce appeared to be saying little, and the firm set of his lips did not relax, while the General talked rapidly and was seemingly making some appeal that was not responded to. Stocks instantly went up a few points.

"You see, Druce, it's like this," the General was saying, "the women have their world, and we have ours. They are, in a measure——"

"Are they going to call?" asked Druce curtly.

"Just let me finish what I was about to say. Women have their rules of conduct, and we have——"

"Are they going to call?" repeated Druce, in the same hard tone of voice.

The General removed his hat and drew his handkerchief across his brow and over the bald spot on his head. He wished himself in any place but where he was, inwardly cursing woman-kind and all their silly doings. Bracing up after removing the moisture from his forehead, he took on an expostulatory tone.

"See here, Druce, hang it all, don't shove a man into a corner. Suppose I asked you to go to Mrs. Ed. and tell her not to fret about trifles, do you suppose she wouldn't, just because you wanted her not to? Come now!"

Druce's silence encouraged the General to take it for assent.

"Very well, then. You're a bigger man than I am, and if you could do nothing with one young woman anxious to please you, what do you expect me to do with two old maids as set in their ways as the Palisades. It's all dumb nonsense, anyhow."

Druce remained silent. After an irksome pause the hapless General floundered on—

"As I said at first, women have their world, and we have ours. Now, Druce, you're a man of solid common sense. What would you think if Mrs. Ed. were to come here and insist on your buying Wabash stock when you wanted to load up with Lake Shore? Look how absurd that would be. Very well, then; we have no more right to interfere with the women than they have to interfere with us."

"If my little girl wanted the whole Wabash System I'd buy it for her to-morrow," said Druce, with rising anger.

"Lord! what a slump that would make in the market!" cried the General, his feeling of discomfort being momentarily overcome by the magnificence of Druce's suggestion. "However, all this doesn't need to make any difference in our friendship. If I can be of any assistance financially I shall only be too——"

"Oh, I need your financial assistance!" sneered Druce. He took his defeat badly. However, in a minute or two, he pulled himself together and seemed to shake off his trouble.

"What nonsense I am talking," he said when he had obtained control of himself. "We all need assistance now and then, and none of us know when we may need it badly. In fact, there is a little deal I intended to speak to you about to-day, but this confounded business drove it out of my mind. How much Gilt Edged security have you in your safe?"

"About three millions' worth," replied the General, brightening up, now that they were off the thin ice.

"That will be enough for me if we can make a dicker. Suppose we adjourn to your office. This is too public a place for a talk."

They went out together.

"So there is no ill-feeling?" said the General, as Druce arose to go with the securities in his handbag.

"No. But we'll stick strictly to business after this, and leave social questions alone. By the way, to show that there is no ill-feeling, will you come with me for a blow on the sea? Suppose we say Friday. I have just telegraphed for my yacht, and she will leave Newport to-night. I'll have some good champagne on board."

"I thought sailors imagined Friday was an unlucky day!"

"My sailors don't. Will eight o'clock be too early for you? Twenty- third Street wharf."

The General hesitated. Druce was wonderfully friendly all of a sudden, and he knew enough of him to be just a trifle suspicious. But when he recollected that Druce himself was going, he said, "Where could a telegram reach us, if it were necessary to telegraph? The market is a trifle shaky, and I don't like being out of town all day."

"The fact that we are both on the yacht will steady the market. But we can drop in at Long Branch and receive despatches if you think it necessary."

"All right," said the General, much relieved. "I'll meet you at Twenty- third Street at eight o'clock Friday morning, then."

Druce's yacht, the Seahound, was a magnificent steamer, almost as large as an Atlantic liner. It was currently believed in New York that Druce kept her for the sole purpose of being able to escape in her, should an exasperated country ever rise in its might and demand his blood. It was rumoured that the Seahound was ballasted with bars of solid gold and provisioned for a two years' cruise. Mr. Buller, however, claimed that the tendency of nature was to revert to original conditions, and that some fine morning Druce would hoist the black flag, sail away, and become a real pirate.

The great speculator, in a very nautical suit, was waiting for the General when he drove up, and, the moment he came aboard, lines were cast off and the Seahound steamed slowly down the bay. The morning was rather thick, so they were obliged to move cautiously, and before they reached the bar the fog came down so densely that they had to stop, while bell rang and whistle blew. They were held there until it was nearly eleven o'clock, but time passed quickly, for there were all the morning papers to read, neither of the men having had an opportunity to look at them before leaving the city.

As the fog cleared away and the engines began to move, the captain sent down and asked Mr. Druce if he would come on deck for a moment. The captain was a shrewd man, and understood his employer.

"There's a tug making for us, sir, signalling us to stop. Shall we stop?"

Old Druce rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and looked over the stern of the yacht. He saw a tug, with a banner of black smoke, tearing after them, heaping up a ridge of white foam ahead of her. Some flags fluttered from the single mast in front, and she shattered the air with short hoarse shrieks of the whistle.

"Can she overtake us?"

The captain smiled. "Nothing in the harbour can overtake us, sir."

"Very well. Full steam ahead. Don't answer the signals. You did not happen to see them, you know!"

"Quite so, sir," replied the captain, going forward.

Although the motion of the Seahound's engines could hardly be felt, the tug, in spite of all her efforts, did not seem to be gaining. When the yacht put on her speed the little steamer gradually fell farther and farther behind, and at last gave up the hopeless chase. When well out at sea something went wrong with the engines, and there was a second delay of some hours. A stop at Long Branch was therefore out of the question.

"I told you Friday was an unlucky day," said the General.

It was eight o'clock that evening before the Seahound stood off from the Twenty-third Street wharf.

"I'll have to put you ashore in a small boat," said Druce: "you won't mind that, I hope. The captain is so uncertain about the engines that he doesn't want to go nearer land."

"Oh, I don't mind in the least. Good-night. I've had a lovely day."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. We will take another trip together some time, when I hope so many things won't happen as happened to-day."

The General saw that his carriage was waiting for him, but the waning light did not permit him to recognise his son until he was up on dry land once more. The look on his son's face appalled the old man.

"My God! John, what has happened?"



"Everything's happened. Where are the securities that were in the safe?"

"Oh, they're all right," said his father, a feeling of relief coming over him. Then the thought flashed through his mind: How did John know they were not in the safe? Sneed kept a tight rein on his affairs, and no one but himself knew the combination that would open the safe.

"How did you know that the securities were not there?"

"Because I had the safe blown open at one o'clock to-day."

"Blown open! For Heaven's sake, why?"

"Step into the carriage, and I'll tell you on the way home. The bottom dropped out of everything. All the Sneed stocks went down with a run. We sent a tug after you, but that old devil had you tight. If I could have got at the bonds, I think I could have stopped the run. The situation might have been saved up to one o'clock, but after that, when the Street saw we were doing nothing, all creation couldn't have stopped it. Where are the bonds?"

"I sold them to Druce."

"What did you get? Cash?"

"I took his cheque on the Trust National Bank."

"Did you cash it? Did you cash it?" cried the young man. "And if you did, where is the money?"

"Druce asked me as a favour not to present the cheque until to-morrow."

The young man made a gesture of despair.

"The Trust National went to smash to-day at two. We are paupers, father; we haven't a cent left out of the wreck. That cheque business is so evidently a fraud that—but what's the use of talking. Old Druce has the money, and he can buy all the law he wants in New York. God! I'd like to have a seven seconds' interview with him with a loaded seven-shooter in my hand! We'd see how much the law would do for him then."

General Sneed despondently shook his head.

"It's no use, John," he said. "We're in the same business ourselves, only this time we got the hot end of the poker. But he played it low down on me, pretending to be friendly and all that." The two men did not speak again until the carriage drew up at the brown stone mansion, which earlier in the day Sneed would have called his own. Sixteen reporters were waiting for them, but the old man succeeded in escaping to his room, leaving John to battle with the newspaper men.

Next morning the papers were full of the news of the panic. They said that old Druce had gone in his yacht for a trip up the New England coast. They deduced from this fact, that, after all, Druce might not have had a hand in the disaster; everything was always blamed on Druce. Still it was admitted that, whoever suffered, the Druce stocks were all right. They were quite unanimously frank in saying that the Sneeds were wiped out, whatever that might mean. The General had refused himself to all the reporters, while young Sneed seemed to be able to do nothing but swear.

Shortly before noon General Sneed, who had not left the house, received a letter brought by a messenger.

He feverishly tore it open, for he recognised on the envelope the well- known scrawl of the great speculator.

DEAR SNEED (it ran),

You will see by the papers that I am off on a cruise, but they are as wrong as they usually are when they speak of me. I learn there was a bit of a flutter in the market while we were away yesterday, and I am glad to say that my brokers, who are sharp men, did me a good turn or two. I often wonder why these flurries come, but I suppose it is to let a man pick up some sound stocks at a reasonable rate, if he has the money by him. Perhaps they are also sent to teach humility to those who might else become purse-proud. We are but finite creatures, Sneed, here to-day and gone to-morrow. How foolish a thing is pride! And that reminds me that if your two daughters should happen to think as I do on the uncertainty of riches, I wish you would ask them to call. I have done up those securities in a sealed package and given the parcel to my daughter-in-law. She has no idea what the value of it is, but thinks it a little present from me to your girls. If, then, they should happen to call, she will hand it to them; if not, I shall use the contents to found a college for the purpose of teaching manners to young women whose grandfather used to feed pigs for a living, as indeed my own grandfather did. Should the ladies happen to like each other, I think I can put you on to a deal next week that will make up for Friday. I like you, Sneed, but you have no head for business. Seek my advice oftener.

Ever yours, DRUCE.

The Sneed girls called on Mrs. Edward Druce.



TRANSFORMATION.

If you grind castor sugar with an equal quantity of chlorate of potash, the result is an innocent-looking white compound, sweet to the taste, and sometimes beneficial in the case of a sore throat. But if you dip a glass rod into a small quantity of sulphuric acid, and merely touch the harmless-appearing mixture with the wet end of the rod, the dish which contains it becomes instantly a roaring furnace of fire, vomiting forth a fountain of burning balls, and filling the room with a dense, black, suffocating cloud of smoke.

So strange a combination is that mystery which we term Human Nature, that a touch of adverse circumstance may transform a quiet, peaceable, law-abiding citizen into a malefactor whose heart is filled with a desire for vengeance, stopping at nothing to accomplish it.

In a little narrow street off the broad Rue de Rennes, near the great terminus of Mont-Parnasse, stood the clock-making shop of the brothers Delore. The window was filled with cheap clocks, and depending from a steel spring attached to the top of the door was a bell, which rang when any one entered, for the brothers were working clockmakers, continually busy in the room at the back of the shop, and trade in the neighbourhood was not brisk enough to allow them to keep an assistant. The brothers had worked amicably in this small room for twenty years, and were reported by the denizens of that quarter of Paris to be enormously rich. They were certainly contented enough, and had plenty of money for their frugal wants, as well as for their occasional exceedingly mild dissipations at the neighbouring cafe. They had always a little money for the church, and a little money for charity, and no one had ever heard either of them speak a harsh word to any living soul, and least of all to each other. When the sensitively adjusted bell at the door announced the arrival of a possible customer, Adolph left his work and attended to the shop, while Alphonse continued his task without interruption. The former was supposed to be the better business man of the two, while the latter was admittedly the better workman. They had a room over the shop, and a small kitchen over the workroom at the back; but only one occupied the bedroom above, the other sleeping in the shop, as it was supposed that the wares there displayed must have formed an almost irresistible temptation to any thief desirous of accumulating a quantity of time-pieces. The brothers took week-about at guarding the treasures below, but in all the twenty years no thief had yet disturbed their slumbers.

One evening, just as they were about to close the shop and adjourn together to the cafe, the bell rang, and Adolph went forward to learn what was wanted. He found waiting for him an unkempt individual of appearance so disreputable, that he at once made up his mind that here at last was the thief for whom they had waited so long in vain. The man's wild, roving eye, that seemed to search out every corner and cranny in the place and rest nowhere for longer than a second at a time, added to Delore's suspicions. The unsavoury visitor was evidently spying out the land, and Adolph felt certain he would do no business with him at that particular hour, whatever might happen later.

The customer took from under his coat, after a furtive glance at the door of the back room, a small paper-covered parcel, and, untying the string somewhat hurriedly, displayed a crude piece of clockwork made of brass. Handing it to Adolph, he said, "How much would it cost to make a dozen like that?"

Adolph took the piece of machinery in his hand and examined it. It was slightly concave in shape, and among the wheels was a strong spring. Adolph wound up this spring, but so loosely was the machinery put together that when he let go the key, the spring quickly uncoiled itself with a whirring noise of the wheels.

"This is very bad workmanship," said Adolph.

"It is," replied the man, who, notwithstanding his poverty-stricken appearance, spoke like a person of education. "That is why I come to you for better workmanship."

"What is it used for?"

The man hesitated for a moment. "It is part of a clock," he said at last.

"I don't understand it. I never saw a clock made like this."

"It is an alarm attachment," replied the visitor, with some impatience. "It is not necessary that you should understand it. All I ask is, can you duplicate it and at what price?"

"But why not make the alarm machinery part of the clock? It would be much cheaper than to make this and then attach it to a clock."

The man made a gesture of annoyance.

"Will you answer my question?" he said gruffly.

"I don't believe you want this as part of a clock. In fact, I think I can guess why you came in here," replied Adolph, as innocent as a child of any correct suspicion of what the man was, thinking him merely a thief, and hoping to frighten him by this hint of his own shrewdness.

His visitor looked loweringly at him, and then with a quick eye, seemed to measure the distance from where he stood to the pavement, evidently meditating flight.

"I will see what my brother says about this," said Adolph. But before Adolph could call his brother, the man bolted and was gone in an instant, leaving the mechanism in the hands of the bewildered clockmaker.

Alphonse, when he heard the story of their belated customer, was even more convinced than his brother of the danger of the situation. The man was undoubtedly a thief, and the bit of clockwork merely an excuse for getting inside the fortress. The brothers, with much perturbation, locked up the establishment, and instead of going to their usual cafe, they betook themselves as speedily as possible to the office of the police, where they told their suspicions and gave a description of the supposed culprit. The officer seemed much impressed by their story.

"Have you brought with you the machine he showed you?"

"No. It is at the shop," said Adolph. "It was merely an excuse to get inside, I am sure of that, for no clockmaker ever made it."

"Perhaps," replied the officer. "Will you go and bring it? Say nothing of this to any one you meet, but wrap the machine in paper and bring it as quickly and as quietly as you can. I would send a man with you, only I do not wish to attract attention."

Before morning the man, who gave his name as Jacques Picard, was arrested, but the authorities made little by their zeal. Adolph Delore swore positively that Picard and his visitor were the same person, but the prisoner had no difficulty in proving that he was in a cafe two miles away at the time the visitor was in Delore's shop, while Adolph had to admit that the shop was rather dark when the conversation about the clockwork took place. Picard was ably defended, and his advocate submitted that, even if he had been in the shop as stated by Delore, and had bargained as alleged for the mechanism, there was nothing criminal in that, unless the prosecution could show that he intended to put what he bought to improper uses. As well arrest a man who entered to buy a key for his watch. So Picard was released, although the police, certain he was one of the men they wanted, resolved to keep a close watch on his future movements. But the suspected man, as if to save them unnecessary trouble, left two days later for London, and there remained.

For a week Adolph slept badly in the shop, for although he hoped the thief had been frightened away by the proceedings taken against him, still, whenever he fell asleep, he dreamt of burglars, and so awoke himself many times during the long nights.

When it came the turn of Alphonse to sleep in the shop, Adolph hoped for an undisturbed night's rest in the room above, but the Fates were against him. Shortly after midnight he was flung from his bed to the floor, and he felt the house rocking as if an earthquake had passed under Paris. He got on his hands and knees in a dazed condition, with a roar as of thunder in his ears, mingled with the sharp crackle of breaking glass. He made his way to the window, wondering whether he was asleep or awake, and found the window shattered. The moonlight poured into the deserted street, and he noticed a cloud of dust and smoke rising from the front of the shop. He groped his way through the darkness towards the stairway and went down, calling his brother's name; but the lower part of the stair had been blown away, and he fell upon the debris below, lying there half- stunned, enveloped in suffocating smoke.

When Adolph partially recovered consciousness, he became aware that two men were helping him out over the ruins of the shattered shop. He was still murmuring the name of his brother, and they were telling him, in a reassuring tone, that everything was all right, although he vaguely felt that what they said was not true. They had their arms linked in his, and he stumbled helplessly among the wreckage, seeming to have lost control over his limbs. He saw that the whole front of the shop was gone, and noticed through the wide opening that a crowd stood in the street, kept back by the police. He wondered why he had not seen all these people when he looked out of the shattered window. When they brought him to the ambulance, he resisted slightly, saying he wanted to go to his brother's assistance, who was sleeping in the shop, but with gentle force they placed him in the vehicle, and he was driven away to the hospital.

For several days Adolph fancied that he was dreaming, that he would soon awake and take up again the old pleasant, industrious life. It was the nurse who told him he would never see his brother again, adding by way of consolation that death had been painless and instant, that the funeral had been one of the grandest that quarter of Paris had ever seen, naming many high and important officials who had attended it. Adolph turned his face to the wall and groaned. His frightful dream was to last him his life.

When he trod the streets of Paris a week later, he was but the shadow of his former portly self. He was gaunt and haggard, his clothes hanging on him as if they had been made for some other man, a fortnight's stubby beard on the face which had always heretofore been smoothly shaven. He sat silently at the cafe, and few of his friends recognised him at first. They heard he had received ample compensation from the Government, and now would have money enough to suffice him all his life, without the necessity of working for it, and they looked on him as a fortunate man. But he sat there listlessly, receiving their congratulations or condolences with equal apathy. Once he walked past the shop. The front was boarded up, and glass had been put in the upper windows.

He wandered aimlessly through the streets of Paris, some saying he was insane, and that he was looking for his brother; others, that he was searching for the murderer. One day he entered the police-office where he had first made his unlucky complaint.

"Have you arrested him yet?" he asked of the officer in charge.

"Whom?" inquired the officer, not recognising his visitor.

"Picard. I am Adolph Delore."

"It was not Picard who committed the crime. He was in London at the time, and is there still."

"Ah! He said he was in the north of Paris when he was with me in the south. He is a liar. He blew up the shop."

"I quite believe he planned it, but the deed was done by another. It was done by Lamoine, who left for Brussels next morning and went to London by way of Antwerp. He is living with Picard in London at this moment."

"If you know that, why has neither of them been taken?"

"To know is one thing; to be able to prove quite another. We cannot get these rascals from England merely on suspicion, and they will take good care not to set foot in France for some time to come."

"You are waiting for evidence, then?"

"We are waiting for evidence."

"How do you expect to get it?"

"We are having them watched. They are very quiet just now, but it won't be for long. Picard is too restless. Then we may arrest some one soon who will confess."

"Perhaps I could help. I am going to London. Will you give me Picard's address?"

"Here is his address, but I think you had better leave the case alone. You do not know the language, and you may merely arouse his suspicions if you interfere. Still, if you learn anything, communicate with me."

The former frank, honest expression in Adolph's eyes had given place to a look of cunning, that appealed to the instincts of a French police- officer. He thought something might come of this, and his instincts did not mislead him.

Delore with great craftiness watched the door of the house in London, taking care that no one should suspect his purpose. He saw Picard come out alone on several occasions, and once with another of his own stripe, whom he took to be Lamoine.

One evening, when crossing Leicester Square, Picard was accosted by a stranger in his own language. Looking round with a start, he saw at his side a cringing tramp, worse than shabbily dressed.

"What did you say?" asked Picard, with a tremor in his voice.

"Could you assist a poor countryman?" whined Delore.

"I have no money."

"Perhaps you could help me to get work. I don't know the language, but I am a good workman."

"How can I help you to work? I have no work myself."

"I would be willing to work for nothing, if I could get a place to sleep in and something to eat."

"Why don't you steal? I would if I were hungry. What are you afraid of? Prison? It is no worse than tramping the streets hungry; I know, for I have tried both. What is your trade?"

"I am a watchmaker and a first-class workman, but I have pawned all my tools. I have tramped from Lyons, but there is nothing doing in my trade."

Picard looked at him suspiciously for a few moments.

"Why did you accost me?" he asked at last.

"I saw you were a fellow-countryman; Frenchmen have helped me from time to time."

"Let us sit down on this bench. What is your name, and how long have you been in England?"

"My name is Adolph Carrier, and I have been in London three months."

"So long as that? How have you lived all that time?"

"Very poorly, as you may see. I sometimes get scraps from the French restaurants, and I sleep where I can."

"Well, I think I can do better than that for you. Come with me."

Picard took Delore to his house, letting himself in with a latchkey. Nobody seemed to occupy the place but himself and Lamoine. He led the way to the top story, and opened a door that communicated with a room entirely bare of furniture. Leaving Adolph there, Picard went downstairs again and came up shortly after with a lighted candle in his hand, followed by Lamoine, who carried a mattress.

"This will do for you for tonight," said Picard, "and tomorrow we will see if we can get you any work. Can you make clocks?"

"Oh yes, and good ones."

"Very well. Give me a list of the tools and materials you need and I will get them for you."

Picard wrote in a note-book the items Adolph recited to him, Lamoine watching their new employee closely, but saying nothing. Next day a table and a chair were put into the room, and in the afternoon Picard brought in the tools and some sheets of brass.

Picard and Lamoine were somewhat suspicious of their recruit at first, but he went on industriously with his task, and made no attempt to communicate with anybody. They soon saw that he was an expert workman, and a quiet, innocent, half-daft, harmless creature, so he was given other things to do, such as cleaning up their rooms and going errands for beer and other necessities of life.

When Adolph finished his first machine, he took it down to them and exhibited it with pardonable pride. There was a dial on it exactly like a clock, although it had but one hand.

"Let us see it work," said Picard; "set it so that the bell will ring in three minutes."

Adolph did as requested, and stood back when the machine began to work with a scarcely audible tick-tick. Picard pulled out his watch, and exactly at the third minute the hammer fell on the bell. "That is very satisfactory," said Picard; "now, can you make the next one slightly concave, so that a man may strap it under his coat without attracting attention? Such a shape is useful when passing the Customs."

"I can make it any shape you like, and thinner than this one if you wish it."

"Very well. Go out and get us a quart of beer, and we will drink to your success. Here is the money."

Adolph obeyed with his usual docility, staying out, however, somewhat longer than usual. Picard, impatient at the delay, spoke roughly to him when he returned, and ordered him to go upstairs to his work. Adolph departed meekly, leaving them to their beer.

"See that you understand that machine, Lamoine," said Picard. "Set it at half an hour."

Lamoine, turning the hand to the figure VI on the dial, set the works in motion, and to the accompaniment of its quiet tick-tick they drank their beer.

"He seems to understand his business," said Lamoine.

"Yes," answered Picard. "What heady stuff this English beer is. I wish we had some good French bock; this makes me drowsy."

Lamoine did not answer; he was nodding in his chair. Picard threw himself down on his mattress in one corner of the room; Lamoine, when he slipped from his chair, muttered an oath, and lay where he fell.

Twenty minutes later the door stealthily opened, and Adolph's head cautiously reconnoitred the situation, coming into the silent apartment inch by inch, his crafty eyes rapidly searching the room and filling with malicious glee when he saw that everything was as he had planned. He entered quietly and closed the door softly behind him. He had a great coil of thin strong cord in his hand. Approaching the sleeping men on tiptoe, he looked down on them for a moment, wondering whether the drug had done its work sufficiently well for him to proceed. The question was settled for him with a suddenness that nearly unnerved him. An appalling clang of the bell, a startling sound that seemed loud enough to wake the dead, made him spring nearly to the ceiling. He dropped his rope and clung to the door in a panic of dread, his palpitating heart nearly suffocating him with its wild beating, staring with affrighted eyes at the machine which had given such an unexpected alarm. Slowly recovering command over himself, he turned his gaze on the sleepers: neither had moved; both were breathing as heavily as ever.

Pulling himself together, he turned his attention first to Picard, as the more dangerous man of the two, should an awakening come before he was ready for it. He bound Picard's wrists tightly together; then his ankles, his knees, and his elbows. He next did the same for Lamoine. With great effort he got Picard in a seated position on his chair, tying him there with coil after coil of the cord. So anxious was he to make everything secure, that he somewhat overdid the business, making the two seem like seated mummies swathed in cord. The chairs he fastened immovably to the floor, then he stood back and gazed with a sigh at the two grim seated figures, with their heads drooping helplessly forward on their corded breasts, looking like silent effigies of the dead.

Mopping his perspiring brow, Adolph now turned his attention to the machine that had startled him so when he first came in. He examined minutely its mechanism to see that everything was right. Going to the cupboard, he took up a false bottom and lifted carefully out a number of dynamite cartridges that the two sleepers had stolen from a French mine. These he arranged in a battery, tying them together. He raised the hammer of the machine, and set the hand so that the blow would fall in sixty minutes after the machinery was set in motion. The whole deadly combination he placed on a small table, which he shoved close in front of the two sleeping men. This done, he sat down on a chair patiently to await the awakening. The room was situated at the back of the house, and was almost painfully still, not a sound from the street penetrating to it. The candle burnt low, guttered and went out, but Adolph sat there and did not light another. The room was still only half in darkness, for the moon shone brightly in at the window, reminding Adolph that it was just a month since he had looked out on a moonlit street in Paris, while his brother lay murdered in the room below. The hours dragged along, and Adolph sat as immovable as the two figures before him. The square of moonlight, slowly moving, at last illuminated the seated form of Picard, imperceptibly climbing up, as the moon sank, until it touched his face. He threw his head first to one side, then back, yawned, drew a deep breath, and tried to struggle.

"Lamoine," he cried "Adolph. What the devil is this? I say, here. Help! I am betrayed."

"Hush," said Adolph, quietly. "Do not cry so loud. You will wake Lamoine, who is beside you. I am here; wait till I light a candle, the moonlight is waning."

"Adolph, you fiend, you are in league with the police."

"No, I am not. I will explain everything in a moment. Have patience." Adolph lit a candle, and Picard, rolling his eyes, saw that the slowly awakening Lamoine was bound like himself.

Lamoine, glaring at his partner and not understanding what had happened, hissed—

"You have turned traitor, Picard; you have informed, curse you!"

"Keep quiet, you fool. Don't you see I am bound as tightly as you?"

"There has been no traitor and no informing, nor need of any. A month ago tonight, Picard, there was blown into eternity a good and honest man, who never harmed you or any one. I am his brother. I am Adolph Delore, who refused to make your infernal machine for you. I am much changed since then; but perhaps now you recognise me?"

"I swear to God," cried Picard, "that I did not do it. I was in London at the time. I can prove it. There is no use in handing me over to the police, even though, perhaps, you think you can terrorise this poor wretch into lying against me."

"Pray to the God, whose name you so lightly use, that the police you fear may get you before I have done with you. In the police, strange as it may sound to you, is your only hope; but they will have to come quickly if they are to save you. Picard, you have lived, perhaps, thirty-five years on this earth. The next hour of your life will be longer to you than all these years."

Adolph put the percussion cap in its place and started the mechanism. For a few moments its quiet tick-tick was the only sound heard in the room, the two bound men staring with wide-open eyes at the dial of the clock, while the whole horror of their position slowly broke upon them.

Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. Each man's face paled, and rivulets of sweat ran down from their brows. Suddenly Picard raised his voice in an unearthly shriek.

"I expected that," said Adolph, quietly. "I don't think anyone can hear, but I will gag you both, so that no risks may be run." When this was done, he said: "I have set the clockwork at sixty minutes; seven of those are already spent. There is still time enough left for meditation and repentance. I place the candle here so that its rays will shine upon the dial. When you have made your own peace, pray for the souls of any you have sent into eternity without time for preparation."

Delore left the room as softly as he had entered it, and the doomed men tried ineffectually to cry out as they heard the key turning in the door.

The authorities knew that someone had perished in that explosion, but whether it was one man or two they could not tell.



THE SHADOW OF THE GREENBACK.

Hickory Sam needed but one quality to be perfect. He should have been an arrant coward. He was a blustering braggart, always boasting of the men he had slain, and the odds he had contended against; filled with stories of his own valour, but alas! he shot straight, and rarely missed his mark, unless he was drunker than usual. It would have been delightful to tell how this unmitigated ruffian had been "held up" by some innocent tenderfoot from the East, and made to dance at the muzzle of a quite new and daintily ornamented revolver, for the loud-mouthed blowhard seemed just the man to flinch when real danger confronted him; but, sad to say, there was nothing of the white feather about Hickory Sam, for he feared neither man, nor gun, nor any combination of them. He was as ready to fight a dozen as one, and once had actually "held up" the United States army at Fort Concho, beating a masterly retreat backwards with his face to the foe, holding a troop in check with his two seven-shooters that seemed to point in every direction at once, making every man in the company feel, with a shiver up his back, that he individually was "covered," and would be the first to drop if firing actually began.

Hickory Sam appeared suddenly in Salt Lick, and speedily made good his claim to be the bad man of the district. Some old-timers disputed Sam's arrogant contention, but they did not live long enough to maintain their own well-earned reputations as objectionable citizens. Thus Hickory Sam reigned supreme in Salt Lick, and every one in the place was willing and eager to stand treat to Sam, or to drink with him when invited.

Sam's chief place of resort in Salt Lick was the Hades Saloon, kept by Mike Davlin. Mike had not originally intended this to be the title of his bar, having at first named it after a little liquor cellar he kept in his early days in Philadelphia, called "The Shades," but some cowboy humourist, particular about the external fitness of things, had scraped out the letter "S," and so the sign over the door had been allowed to remain. Mike did not grumble. He had taken a keen interest in politics in Philadelphia, but an unexpected spasm of civic virtue having overtaken the city some years before, Davlin had been made a victim, and he was forced to leave suddenly for the West, where there was no politics, and where a man handy at mixing drinks was looked upon as a boon by the rest of the community. Mike did not grumble when even the name "Hades" failed to satisfy the boys in their thirst for appropriate nomenclature, and when they took to calling the place by a shorter and terser synonym beginning with the same letter, he made no objections.

Mike was an adaptive man, who mixed drinks, but did not mix in rows. He protected himself by not keeping a revolver, and by admitting that he could not hit his own saloon at twenty yards distance. A residence in the quiet city of Philadelphia is not conducive to the nimbling of the trigger finger. When the boys in the exuberance of their spirits began to shoot, Mike promptly ducked under his counter and waited till the clouds of smoke rolled by. He sent in a bill for broken glass, bottles, and the damage generally, when his guests were sober again, and his accounts were always paid. Mike was a deservedly popular citizen in Salt Lick, and might easily have been elected to the United States Congress, if he had dared to go east again. But, as he himself said, he was out of politics.

It was the pleasant custom of the cowboys at Buller's ranch to come into Salt Lick on pay-days and close up the town. These periodical visits did little harm to any one, and seemed to be productive of much amusement for the boys. They rode at full gallop through the one street of the place like a troop of cavalry, yelling at the top of their voices and brandishing their weapons.

The first raid through Salt Lick was merely a warning, and all peaceably inclined inhabitants took it as such, retiring forthwith to the seclusion of their houses. On their return trip the boys winged or lamed, with unerring aim, any one found in the street. They seldom killed a wayfarer; if a fatality ensued it was usually the result of accident, and much to the regret of the boys, who always apologised handsomely to the surviving relatives, which expression of regret was generally received in the amicable spirit with which it was tendered. There was none of the rancour of the vendetta in these little encounters; if a man happened to be blotted out, it was his ill luck, that was all, and there was rarely any thought of reprisal.

This perhaps was largely due to the fact that the community was a shifting one, and few had any near relatives about them, for, although the victim might have friends, they seldom held him in such esteem as to be willing to take up his quarrel when there was a bullet hole through him. Relatives, however, are often more difficult to deal with than are friends, in cases of sudden death, and this fact was recognised by Hickory Sam, who, when he was compelled to shoot the younger Holt brother in Mike's saloon, promptly went, at some personal inconvenience, and assassinated the elder, before John Holt heard the news. As Sam explained to Mike when he returned, he had no quarrel with John Holt, but merely killed him in the interests of peace, for he would have been certain to draw and probably shoot several citizens when he heard of his brother's death, because, for some unexplained reason, the brothers were fond of each other.

When Hickory Sam was comparatively new to Salt Lick he allowed the Buller's ranch gang to close up the town without opposition. It was their custom, when the capital of Coyote county had been closed up to their satisfaction, to adjourn to Hades and there "blow in" their hard- earned gains on the liquor Mike furnished. They also added to the decorations of the saloon ceiling. Several cowboys had a gift of twirling their Winchester repeating rifles around the fore finger and firing it as the flying muzzle momentarily pointed upwards. The man who could put the most bullets within the smallest space in the roof was the expert of the occasion, and didn't have to pay for his drinks.

This exhibition might have made many a man quail, but it had no effect on Hickory Sam, who leant against the bar and sneered at the show as child's play.

"Perhaps you think you can do it," cried the champion. "I bet you the drinks you can't."

"I don't have to," said Hickory Sam, with the calm dignity of a dead shot. "I don't have to, but I'll tell you what I can do. I can nip the heart of a man with this here gun" showing his seven-shooter, "me a- standing in Hades here and he a-coming out of the bank." For Salt Lick, being a progressive town, had the Coyote County Bank some distance down the street on the opposite side from the saloon.

"You're a liar," roared the champion, whereupon all the boys grasped their guns and were on the look out for trouble.

Hickory Sam merely laughed, strode to the door, threw it open, and walked out to the middle of the deserted thoroughfare.

"I'm a bad man from Way Back," he yelled at the top of his voice. "I'm the toughest cuss in Coyote county, and no darned greasers from Buller's can close up this town when I'm in it. You hear me! Salt Lick's wide open, and I'm standing in the street to prove it."

It was bad enough to have the town declared open when fifteen of them in a body had proclaimed it closed, but in addition to this to be called "greasers" was an insult not to be borne. A cowboy despises a Mexican almost as much as he does an Indian. With a soul-terrifying yell the fifteen were out of the saloon and on their horses like a cyclone. They went down the street with tornado speed, wheeling about, some distance below the temporarily closed bank, and, charging up again at full gallop, fired repeatedly in the direction of Hickory Sam, who was crouching behind an empty whiskey barrel in front of the saloon with a "gun" in either hand.

Sam made good his contention by nipping the heart of the champion when opposite the bank, who plunged forward on his face and threw the cavalcade into confusion. Then Sam stood up, and regardless of the scattering shots, fired with both revolvers, killing the foremost man of the troop and slaughtering three horses, which instantly changed the charge into a rout. He then retired to Hades and barricaded the door. Mike was nowhere to be seen.

But the boys knew when they had enough. They made no attack on the saloon, but picked up their dead, and, thoroughly sobered, made their way, much more slowly than they came, back to Buller's ranch.

When it was evident that they had gone, Mike cautiously emerged from his place of retirement, as Sam was vigorously pounding on the bar, threatening that if a drink were not forthcoming he would go round behind the bar and help himself.

"I'm a law and order man," he explained to Davlin, "and I won't have no toughs from Buller's ranch close up this town and interfere with commerce. Every man has got to respect the Constitution of the United States as long as my gun can bark, you bet your life!"

Mike hurriedly admitted that he was perfectly right, and asked him what he would have, forgetting in his agitation that Sam took one thing only, and that one thing straight.

Next day old Buller himself came in from his ranch to see if anything could be done about this latest affray. It was bad enough to lose two of his best herdsmen in a foolish contest of this kind, but to have three trained horses killed as well, was disgusting. Buller had been one of the boys himself in his young days, but now, having grown wealthy in the cattle business, he was anxious to see civilisation move westward with strides a little more rapid than it was taking. He made the mistake of appealing to the Sheriff, as if that worthy man could be expected, for the small salary he received, to attempt the arrest of so dead a shot as Hickory Sam.

Besides, as the Sheriff quite correctly pointed out, the boys themselves had been the aggressors in the first place, and if fifteen of them could not take care of one man behind an empty whiskey barrel, they had better remain peaceably at home in the future, and do their pistol practice in the quiet, innocuous retirement of a shooting gallery. They surely could not expect the strong arm of the law, in the person of a peaceably-minded Sheriff, to reach out and pull their chestnuts from the fire when several of them had already burned their fingers, and when the chestnuts shot and drank as straight as Hickory Sam.

Buller, finding the executive portion of the law slow and reluctant to move, sought advice from his own lawyer, the one disciple of Coke-upon- Littleton in the place. The lawyer doubted if there was any legal remedy in the then condition of society around Salt Lick. The safest plan perhaps would be—mind, he did not advise, but merely suggested— to surround Hickory Sam and wipe him off the face of the earth. This might not be strictly according to law, but it would be effective, if carried out without an error.

The particulars of Buller's interview with the Sheriff spread rapidly in Salt Lick, and caused great indignation among the residents thereof, especially those who frequented Hades. It was a reproach to the place that the law should be invoked, all on account of a trivial incident like that of the day before. Sam, who had been celebrating his victory at Mike's, heard the news with bitter, if somewhat silent resentment, for he had advanced so far in his cups that he was all but speechless. Being a magnanimous man, he would have been quite content to let bygones be bygones, but this unjustifiable action of Buller's required prompt and effectual chastisement. He would send the wealthy ranchman to keep company with his slaughtered herdsmen.

Thus it was that when Buller mounted his horse after his futile visit to the lawyer, he found Hickory Sam holding the street with his guns. The fusillade that followed was without result, which disappointing termination is accounted for by the fact that Sam was exceedingly drunk at the time, and the ranchman was out of practice. Seldom had Salt Lick seen so much powder burnt with no damage except to the window-glass in the vicinity. Buller went back to the lawyer's office, and afterwards had an interview with the bank manager. Then he got quietly out of town unmolested, for Sam, weeping on Mike's shoulder over the inaccuracy of his aim, gradually sank to sleep in a corner of the saloon.

Next morning, when Sam woke to temporary sobriety, he sent word to the ranch that he would shoot old Buller on sight, and, at the same time, he apologised for the previous eccentricities of his fire, promising that such an annoying exhibition should not occur again. He signed himself "The Terror of Salt Lick, and the Champion of Law and Order."

It was rumoured that old Buller, when he returned to the lawyer's office, had made his will, and that the bank manager had witnessed it. This supposed action of Buller was taken as a most delicate compliment to Hickory Sam's determination and marksmanship, and he was justly proud of the work he had thrown into the lawyer's hands.

A week passed before old Buller came to Salt Lick, but when he came, Hickory Sam was waiting for him, and this time the desperado was not drunk, that is to say, he had not had more than half a dozen glasses of forty rod that morning.

When the rumour came to Hades that old Buller was approaching the town on horseback and alone, Sam at once bet the drinks that he would fire but one shot, and so, in a measure, atone for the ineffectual racket he had made on the occasion of the previous encounter. The crowd stood by, in safe places, to see the result of the duel.

Sam, a cocked revolver in his right hand, stood squarely in the centre of the street, with the sturdy bearing of one who has his quarrel just, and who besides can pierce the ace spot on a card ten yards further away than any other man in the county.



Old Buller came riding up the street as calmly as if he were on his own ranch. When almost within range of Sam's pistol, the old man raised both hands above his head, letting the reins fall on the horse's neck. In this extraordinary attitude he rode forward, to the amazement of the crowd and the evident embarrassment of Sam.

"I am not armed," the old man shouted. "I have come to talk this thing over and settle it."

"It's too late for talk," yelled Sam, infuriated at the prospect of missing his victim after all; "pull your gun, old man, and shoot."

"I haven't got a gun on me," said Buller, still advancing, and still holding up his hands.

"That trick's played out," shouted Sam, flinging up his right hand and firing.

The old man, with hands above his head, leant slowly forward like a falling tower, then pitched head foremost from his horse to the ground, where he lay without a struggle, face down and arms spread out.

Great as was the fear of the desperado, an involuntary cry of horror went up from the crowd. Killing is all right and proper in its way, but the shooting of an unarmed man who voluntarily held up his hands and kept them up, was murder, even on the plains.

Sam looked savagely round him, glaring at the crowd that shrank away from him, the smoking pistol hanging muzzle downward from his hand.

"It's all a trick. He had a shooting-iron in his boot. I see the butt of it sticking out. That's why I fired."

"I'm not saying nothing," said Mike, as the fierce glance of Hickory rested on him, "'tain't any affair of mine."

"Yes, it is," cried Hickory.

"Why, I didn't have nothin' to do with it," protested the saloon keeper.

"No. But you've got somethin' to do with it now. What did we elect you coroner fur, I'd like to know? You've got to hustle around and panel your jury an' bring in a verdict of accidental death or something of that sort. Bring any sort or kind of verdict that'll save trouble in future. I believe in law and order, I do, an' I like to see things done regular."

"But we didn't have no jury for them cowboys," said Mike.

"Well, cowboys is different. It didn't so much matter about them. Still, it oughter been done, even with cowboys, if we were more'n half civilised. Nothin' like havin' things down on the record straight and shipshape. Now some o' you fellows help me in with the body, and Mike'll panel his jury in three shakes."

There is nothing like an energetic public-spirited man for reducing chaos to order. Things began to assume their normal attitude, and the crowd began to look to Sam for instruction. He seemed to understand the etiquette of these occasions, and those present felt that they were ignorant and inexperienced compared with him.

The body was laid out on a bench in the room at the back of the saloon, while the jury and the spectators were accommodated with such seats as the place afforded, Hickory Sam himself taking an elevated position on the top of a barrel, where he could, as it were, preside over the arrangements. It was vaguely felt by those present that Sam bore no malice towards the deceased, and this was put down rather to his credit.

"I think," said the coroner, looking hesitatingly up at Sam, with an expression which showed he was quite prepared to withdraw his proposal if it should prove inappropriate, "I think we might have the lawyer over here. He knows how these things should be done, and he's the only man in Salt Lick that's got a Bible to swear the jury on. I think they ought to be sworn."

"That's a good idea," concurred Sam. "One of you run across for him, and tell him to bring the book. Nothing like havin' these things regular and proper and accordin' to law."

The lawyer had heard of the catastrophe, and he came promptly over to the saloon, bringing the book with him and some papers in his hand. There was now no doubt about Sam's knowledge of the proper thing to do, when it was found that the lawyer quite agreed with him that an inquest, under the circumstances, was justifiable and according to precedent. The jury found that the late Mr. Buller had "died through misadventure," which phrase, sarcastically suggested by the lawyer when he found that the verdict was going to be "accidental death," pleased the jury, who at once adopted it.

When the proceedings were so pleasantly terminated by a verdict acceptable to all parties, the lawyer cleared his throat and said that his late client, having perhaps a premonition of his fate, had recently made his will, and he had desired the lawyer to make the will public as soon as possible after his death. As the occasion seemed in every way suitable, the lawyer proposed, with the permission of the coroner, to read that portion which Mr. Buller hoped would receive the widest possible publicity.

Mike glanced with indecision at the lawyer and at Sam sitting high above the crowd on the barrel.

"Certainly," said Hickory. "We'd all like to hear the will, although I suppose it's none of our business."

The lawyer made no comment on this remark, but bowing to the assemblage, unfolded a paper and read it.

Mr. Buller left all his property to his nephew in the East with the exception of fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks, then deposited in the Coyote County Bank at Salt Lick. The testator had reason to suspect that a desperado named Hickory Sam (real name or designation unknown) had designs on the testator's life. In case these designs were successful, the whole of this money was to go to the person or persons who succeeded in removing this scoundrel from the face of the earth. In case the Sheriff arrested the said Hickory Sam and he was tried and executed, the money was to be divided between the Sheriff and those who assisted in the capture. If any man on his own responsibility shot and killed the said Hickory Sam, the fifty thousand dollars became his sole property, and would be handed over to him by the bank manager, in whom Mr. Buller expressed every confidence, as soon as the slayer of Hickory Sam proved the deed to the satisfaction of the manager. In every case the bank manager had full control of the disposal of the fund, and could pay it in bulk, or divide it among those who had succeeded in eliminating from a contentious world one of its most contentious members.

The amazed silence which followed the reading of this document was broken by a loud jeering and defiant laugh from the man on the barrel. He laughed long, but no one joined him, and, as he noticed this, his hilarity died down, being in a measure forced and mechanical. The lawyer methodically folded up his papers. As some of the jury glanced down at the face of the dead man who had originated this financial scheme of post mortem vengeance, they almost fancied they saw a malicious leer about the half-open eyes and lips. An awed whisper ran round the assemblage. Each man said to the other under his breath: "Fif—ty—thous—and—dollars," as if the dwelling on each syllable made the total seem larger. The same thought was in every man's mind; a clean, cool little fortune merely for the crooking of a forefinger and the correct levelling of a pistol barrel.

The lawyer had silently taken his departure. Sam, soberer than he had been for many days, slid down from the barrel, and, with his hand on the butt of his gun, sidled, his back against the wall, towards the door. No one raised a finger to stop him; all sat there watching him as if they were hypnotised. He was no longer a man in their eyes, but the embodiment of a sum to be earned in a moment, for which thousands worked hard all their lives, often in vain, to accumulate.

Sam's brain on a problem was not so quick as his finger on a trigger, but it began to filter slowly into his mind that he was now face to face with a danger against which his pistol was powerless. Heretofore, roughly speaking, nearly everybody had been his friend; now the hand of the world was against him, with a most powerful motive for being against him; a motive which he himself could understand. For a mere fraction of fifty thousand dollars he would kill anybody, so long as the deed could be done with reasonable safety to himself. Why then should any man stay his hand against him with such a reward hanging over his head? As Sam retreated backwards from among his former friends they saw in his eyes what they had never seen there before, something that was not exactly fear, but a look of furtive suspicion against the whole human race.

Out in the open air once again Sam breathed more freely. He must get away from Salt Lick, and that quickly. Once on the prairie he could make up his mind what the next move was to be. He kept his revolver in his hand, not daring to put it into its holster. Every sound made him jump, and he was afraid to stand in the open, yet he could not remain constantly with his back to the wall. Poor Buller's horse, fully accoutred, cropped the grass by the side of the road. To be a horse- thief was, of course, worse than to be a murderer, but there was no help for it; without the horse escape was impossible. He secured the animal with but little trouble and sprang upon its back.

As he mounted, a shot rang out from the saloon. Sam whirled around in the saddle, but no one was to be seen; nothing but a thin film of pistol smoke melting in the air above the open door. The rider fired twice into the empty doorway, then, with a threat, turned towards the open country and galloped away, and Salt Lick was far behind him when night fell. He tethered his horse and threw himself down on the grass, but dared not sleep. For all he knew, his pursuers might be within a few rods of where he lay, for he was certain they would be on his trail as soon as they knew he had left Salt Lick. The prize was too great for no effort to be made to secure it.

There is an enemy before whom the strongest and bravest man must succumb; that enemy is sleeplessness. When daylight found the desperado, he had not closed an eye all night. His nerve was gone, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt a thrill of fear. The emptiness of the prairie, which should have encouraged him, struck a chill of loneliness into him, and he longed for the sight of a man, even though he might have to fight him when he approached. He must have a comrade, he said to himself, if he could find any human being in straits as terrible as his own, some one who would keep watch and watch with him through the night; but the comrade must either be ignorant of the weight of money that hung over the desperado's head, or there must be a price on his own. An innocent man would not see the use of keeping such strict watch; a guilty man, on learning the circumstances of the case, would sell Sam's life to purchase his own freedom. Fifty thousand dollars, in the desperado's mind, would do anything, and yet he himself, of all the sixty million people in the land, was the only one who could not earn it! A comrade, then, innocent or guilty, was impossible, and yet was absolutely necessary if the wanderer was to have sleep.

The horse was in distress through lack of water, and Sam himself was both hungry and thirsty. His next halting-place must be near a stream, yet perhaps his safety during the first night was due to the fact that his pursuers would naturally have looked for him near some watercourse, and not on the open prairie.

Ten days later, Mike Davlin was awakened at three in the morning, to find standing by his bed a gaunt, haggard living skeleton, holding a candle in one hand, and pointing a cocked revolver at Mike's head with the other.

"Get up," said the apparition hoarsely, "and get me something to eat and drink. Drink first, and be quick about it. Make no noise. Is there anybody else in the house?"

"No," said Mike, shivering. "You wait here, Sam, and I'll bring you something. I thought you were among the Indians, or in Mexico, or in the Bad Lands long ago."

"I'm in bad lands enough here. I'll go with you. I'm not going to let you out of my sight, and no tricks, mind, or you know what will happen."

"Surely you trust me, Sam," whined Mike, getting up.

"I don't trust any living man. Who fired that shot at me when I was leaving?"

"So help me," protested Mike, "I dunno. I wasn't in the bar at the time. I can prove I wasn't. Yer not looking well, Sam."

"Blister you for a slow dawdler, you'd not look well either, if you had no sleep for a week and was starved into the bargain. Get a move on you."

Sam ate like a wild beast what was set before him, and although he took a stiff glass of whiskey and water at the beginning, he now drank sparingly. He laid the revolver on the table at his elbow, and made Mike sit opposite him. When the ravenous meal was finished, he pushed the plate from him and looked across at Davlin.

"When I said I didn't trust you, Mike, I was a liar. I do, an' I'll prove it. When it's your interest to befriend a man, you'll do it every time."

"I will that," said Mike, not quite comprehending what the other had said.

"Now listen to me, Mike, and be sure you do exactly as I tell you. Go to where the bank manager lives and rouse him up as I roused you. He'll not be afraid when he sees it's you. Tell him you've got me over in the saloon, and that I've come to rob the bank of that fifty thousand dollars. Say that I'm desperate and can't be taken short of a dozen lives, and there is no lie in that, as you know. Tell him you've fallen in with my plans, and that we'll go over there and hold him up. Tell him the only chance of catching me is by a trick. He's to open the door of the place where the money is, and you're to shove me in and lock me up. But when he opens the door I'll send a bullet through him, and you and me will divide the money. Nobody will suspect you, for nobody'll know you were there but the bank man, and he'll be dead. But if you make one move except as I tell you the first bullet goes through you. See?"