get out o' here."

"I ain't askin' my money back," sez Piker. "I'm game, I am; but I can't savvy this scheme o' dividin' up after the game." He paused a second, an' then sez clear an' distinct, "This ain't exactly the way 'at Silver d.i.c.k used to play the game when he made a business of it."

Piker leaned back an' stared at d.i.c.k in a sneerin' sort of way; while me an' the ol' man stared at him with our eyes poppin' out. Silver d.i.c.k, Silver d.i.c.k: every one in the West had heard of Silver d.i.c.k. It didn't seem possible; but as me an' Jabez sat gazin' at him, we knew 'at our d.i.c.k was Silver d.i.c.k the gambler, an' the smoothest article, accordin' to reports, 'at ever threw a card. d.i.c.k didn't say a word; just sat there with his face pale as a sheet, an' his glitterin' black eyes dartin' flame at Piker's nasty grin.

"I see you don't recognize me with a full beard," sez Piker; "but down at Laramie they called me Jo Denton. It was my cousin, Big Brown, that you shot."

"Do you happen to know what I shot him for?" d.i.c.k's face was as hard as marble, an' his voice was as cold as ice.

"I wasn't there at the time," sez Piker in an irritatin' voice, "but I know that it was because he spoke about it bein' a little peculiar that you held such wonderful good hands on your own deal."

d.i.c.k didn't make no reply, but he slipped his hand inside his shirt, an' I knew he had his gun there.

"I say that this was the EXCUSE for your shootin';" Piker went on, bent on gettin' all the trouble the' was; "but I allus believed, myself, that it started over the woman you was keepin'."

d.i.c.k's gun flashed in the air; but quick as a wink ol' Cast Steel knocked it up with his right hand, an' struck at d.i.c.k with his left.

The bullet crashed through the ceiling, an' d.i.c.k grabbed Jabez' wrist at the same instant. Piker made a quick snap under the table, a gun went off, an' the bullet tore through the slack o' d.i.c.k's vest an'

spinged into the wall behind him.

Then I kicked off my hobbles an' sailed in on my own hook. d.i.c.k had allus been white to me--an' back in the old days he was the squarest feller on earth--so I felt mightly relieved when I caught Piker in the center of the forehead with a full left swing. It was a blow 'at n.o.body didn't have no grounds to complain of. The chair flew over backwards, Piker's feet made a lovely circle, an' his head tried to insinuate itself into the mopboard. He remained quiet, an' I started in to satisfy my curiosity.

"Stay where you are," commanded d.i.c.k, an' I stuck in my tracks. "No man is allowed to doubt my deal without havin' something to remind him of it. I ain't a-goin' to kill that snake now; but I do intend to remove his trigger fingers."

d.i.c.k still held Jabez by a peculiar twist in the wrist 'at made the ol'

man wince a little; he held his gun ready, an' calmly sized up Piker's hand, which was flattened out again the wall. I stood where I was, an'

the room was so quiet it hurt your ears.

A grin of wolfish joy came into d.i.c.k's face as he stood there with his gun back of his head an' his thumb on the hammer--of course he was a snap-shooter--these nervous fellers allus are. It seemed as if we had all been in that same position for ages, when suddenly a voice said, "Why, Dad, what's the matter?"

It was Barbie with her hair all rumpled up an' a loose gray wrapper on.

d.i.c.k dropped his hands to his side an' turned his face away; while Jabez put his arm about her an' told her that we had had a little mix-up but that it was all over now an' she must go back to bed. She reared up an' vetoed the motion without parley; but the ol' man finally convinced her, an' she agreed to go if we'd promise not to stir up any more trouble. Me an' Jabez promised quick, but d.i.c.k never said a word.

She looked him in the face mighty beseechful, but he wouldn't look at her; an' when he finally promised not to START any more fuss his voice was so low you could hardly hear him.

She was pale as a ghost, an' d.i.c.k's voice made her all the more suspicious. "I'll not go one step," she said at last, sinkin' down in a chair; but d.i.c.k walked over to her an' asked her to step into the next room with him a minute. They only talked together a few moments, an'

then we heard her give a stifled sob an' go back upstairs. I never see such a change as had come over Jabez. His face was drawn an' haggard like the face of a man lost in the desert without water.

The time had come at last when another man stood between his daughter--his greatest treasure on earth--an' himself. I remembered what Friar Tuck had said about the time comin' when she'd be all girl an' would stand before him with the questions of life in her eyes, an'

I pitied him, G.o.d knows I pitied him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CAST STEEL

Jabez had got the rope on himself when d.i.c.k came back, an' he spoke to him in the voice of a father sayin' farewell to the son who had gone wrong once too often. "I don't care nothin' about the money, d.i.c.k," he said. "You'd 'a' been welcome to all I had; but I can't forgive you about my little girl. You made her love you, you schemed to do it, an'

you came here with that end in view. I trusted you from the ground up, but I can see a heap o' things now 'at I wouldn't see before. I had a letter written from Bill Andrews tellin' me 'at he had heard you brag 'at you intended to get holt o' my money, an' that it would pay me to search you instead o' suspectin' him--"

"Where was the letter from?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Laramie," sez the ol' man.

"Kind o' curious," sez d.i.c.k, an' his vice was as bitter as the dregs o'

sin; "that's where Denton came from too."

"You deceived me all along," sez the ol' man, not payin' much heed to d.i.c.k, but speakin' mostly to himself. "You know 'at what I hate worse'n anything else is deceit--an' here you've been fast an' loose with women--" d.i.c.k tried to say somethin', but the ol' man stopped him.

"That was bad enough," he went on, "but I'm no fool; I know the world, an' I could forgive you a good deal; but hang it, I never could forgive you bein' a professional gambler--a man that lives by deceit an'

trickery an' false pretenses. Lookin' back now, it strikes me as bein'

mighty curious how you got the best o' Piker's deals too. Was Piker or Denton, or whatever his name is, a gambler too?"

"He was," answered d.i.c.k in a low tone.

The ol' man squared himself, an' his face was as fierce as the face of an ol' she bear. "Of all the human snakes I ever heard of, you crawl the closest to the ground. You come here an' act as square as a man can until you have made us all think the world of ya; an' yet in your black heart you were all the time plottin' to get my money, usin' my little girl as a burglar would use a bar to open a safe with. Even then you couldn't wait in patience; your inborn cussedness forced you to steal an' cheat--and yet, boy, I could almost forgive you for deceivin' me, but I can't never forgive you for deceivin' my little girl. You stand there with a gun in your hand an' I stand here with none; you brag 'at no man can't doubt your dealin' without havin' cause to remember it; but I tell you to your teeth that you're a sneak an' a cheat an' a low-grade coward."

d.i.c.k stood with his head thrown back an' his left hand clenched, while his right gripped the b.u.t.t of his gun so fierce that the knuckles stood out white as chalk an' the veins was black an' swollen. His bosom was heavin', his teeth showed in a threatenin' white line, an' all the savage th' was in him was cryin' kill, kill, kill!

He tottered a little when he took a step toward Jabez; but he laid the gun on the table with the b.u.t.t pointin' towards Jabez, an' then he went back to the wall an' folded his arms. He stood lookin' at Jabez for a moment, an' then he sez slow an' soft an' creepy: "Every word you have said from start to finish is a lie; and you yourself are a liar."

The ol' man choked. He loosened the collar around his neck, fairly gaspin' for breath; an' then he grabbed up the gun an' held it ready to drop on d.i.c.k's heart. A curious expression came over d.i.c.k as he looked into Jabez' face; a tired, heart-achy smile as though he'd be so glad to be all through with it that he wouldn't care a great deal how it was done. Ol' Cast Steel was livin' up to his name if ever a man did. The'

wasn't a sign of anger in his face by this time, nothin' but one grim purpose, an' it was horrid. It looked like a plain case o' suicide on d.i.c.k's part, an' I was just makin' up my mind whether or not it would be polite to interfere, when the door opened noiselessly an' Barbie stood in the openin'.

She seemed turned to stone for a second, an' then she gave a spring an'

grabbed the ol' man's arm. "Jabez Judson, what are you doin'?" she said, an' the' wasn't much blood relation in her tone.

The ol' man lowered his gun an' sank into a chair, while Barbie stood with her hands on her hips an' looked from one to the other of us. Then it would be the time for our eyes to hit the carpet. "Now I want to know the meanin' o' this," sez she, "an' I want the full truth. This is nice doin's over a game o' cards. I wish I had thought to set up a bar, so you'd all felt a little more at home. What's it about?"

We didn't none of us seem to have a great deal to say, but just stood there lookin' foolish. Finally d.i.c.k came out of it an' sez, "I have been accused of cheatin' an' lyin' an' stealin'. The circ.u.mstantial evidence is all again me, so I shall have to go away, but you remember all I told you out in the other room--an' on our rides across the plain, an' on our walks in the moonlight; an' Barbie, girl, don't you believe a word of it.

"Good-bye, Happy--I know you an' you know me. Jabez Judson, I know it ain't no use to attempt any explanation; but I give you my word of honor--an' I set just as much store by it as any man in all the world--that I never stacked a deck o' cards in my life, an' I never held a single underhanded thought again you; while as for Barbie--well, Barbie knows. Good-bye."

d.i.c.k turned on his heel an' stalked out o' the room, Barbie dropped into a chair sobbin', an' me an' the old man continued to look like the genuine guilty parties. Then it occurred to me that mebbe it would be wise to see if Piker was worth botherin' with. First thing I did though was to see where he had helt his gun when he fired beneath the table.

The' wasn't no gun on the floor, an' I couldn't nowise savvy it.

He had one gun in his holster, but he couldn't have pulled it out without bein' seen, an' he couldn't have put it back, nohow. I was plumb mystified, an' had about give it up when I came across it. I own up it was a clever dodge, but snakish to an extreme. He had fashioned a rig just above his knee, an' when he had sat down the gun had been pointin' at d.i.c.k all through the game, an' nothin' but Jabez makin'

d.i.c.k move had saved him. It was a blood-thirsty scheme, an' I felt like stampin' his face into a jelly.

His head was still bent over an' he was black in the face; but when I straightened him out an' soused a lot o' water over him, he came out of it, an' I fair itched to make him eat his gun--knee-riggin' an' all! He sat up an' began to tell what a low-down, sneakin' cuss d.i.c.k had allus been. I let him sing a couple o' verses, an' then I sez: "Now, you look here, you slimy spider. d.i.c.k's too busy just now to attend to your case an' if you don't swaller them few remarks instant I'll be obliged to prepare you for the coroner myself. I've knowed d.i.c.k sometime, an' I've knowed several other men; an' I know enough to know that such a dust-eatin' lizard as you never could know enough to know what such a man as d.i.c.k was thinkin' out or plannin' to do. An' furthermore, you're a liar in your heart, an' still further more, I don't like your face; an' one other furthermore--the longer I look at you the madder I get!

My advice to you, an' I give it in the name o' peace an' sobriety, an'

because the' 's a lady present, is to start right now to a more salubrious climate--you an' your knee-gun an' your black lies an' your marked decks. Do you hear what I say? Are you goin' to go?"

I was surely losin' my temper; the' was a blood taste in my throat, an'

when I asked him the question I kicked him gently in the chest, just to let him know 'at I was ready for his verdict.

He was a coward. He just lunched himself away from me on his back an'

whined somethin' about only tryin' to show us the truth an' not wantin'

any trouble, an' a lot o' such foolishness; but I soon wearied of it, an' grabbed him by the collar an' yanked him to his feet, an' sez, "Now answer me one question--who told you that d.i.c.k was here?"