"One more try," laughed Comstock easily, "and I'll give up. Two-Hand Billy Comstock.... Aha, I get you now!"

For now Buck Thornton started and his eyes did show interest and a sudden flash of surprise. For fifteen years Two-Hand Billy Comstock, United States Deputy Marshal, had been widely known throughout the great South-west, a man who asked no odds and gave no quarter, one whose name sent as chill a shiver through the hard hearts of the lawless as a sight of the gallows would have done. And this man, small, well dressed, quiet mannered, as dapper as a tailor's dummy....

"If you are Billy Comstock," grunted Thornton, "well, I'm d.a.m.n' glad to know you, sir!"

"If I am?" grinned Comstock. "And why should I lie to you?"

"I'm not saying that you are lying," returned the cowboy coolly. "But I'm getting in the habit these days of being suspicious, I guess. But if you are that Comstock and want to see me, I'd come mighty close to guessing what you want. But before I do any talking I want to know."

"Sure," Comstock nodded. And then, smiling again "Only, Mr. Thornton, I'm not in the habit of carrying around a trunk full of identifications."

"You don't need them."

Billy Comstock's name he had made himself, and it had carried far. There were few men in half a dozen States in this corner of the country who did not know why he was called "Two-Hand Billy" and how he had earned his right to the nickname. His fame was that of a man who was absolutely fearless, and who carried the law where other men could not or would not carry it. To him had come the dangers, the sharp fights against odds that had seemed overwhelming, and always he had shot his way out with a gun in each hand, and no waste lead.

"I never saw the man who could beat me to my gun," went on Thornton quietly, no boastfulness in his tone, merely the plain statement of a fact. "If you are 'Two-Hand Billy Comstock' you ought to do it."

The two men were sitting loosely in their chairs at opposite sides of the room, the table with the lamp between them. Comstock's hands were again clasped behind his head. Thornton lifted his arms, clasping his own hands behind his head.

Comstock smiled suddenly, brightly, seeming to understand and to be as pleased as a child with anew game.

"I'll count three," said Thornton. "We'll both go for our guns. If I get the drop on you first," with a smile which reflected the other's, "I've a notion to shoot you up for an impostor!"

"If you get the drop on me first," grinned Comstock, "and don't shoot me up, I'll make you a present of the best gun you ever saw."

Thornton counted slowly, with regular intervals between the words.

"One," and neither man moved, both sitting in seeming carelessness, their hands behind their heads. "Two," and only their eyes showed that every lax muscle in each body grew taut. "Three," and then they moved, the two men like two pieces of the same machine driven unerringly by the same motive power.

Not the hands alone but the entire bodies, every muscle leaping into action in a swiftness too great, too accurate for it to have been fully appreciated had there been a third man to see. Thornton slipped sideways from his chair, dropping to his knees upon the floor, and his two hands flashed downward. The left hand sped to the opening at the left hip of his chaps, and to the pocket beneath; the right hand into the loose band at his stomach. And the hands seemed not to have disappeared for a fraction of a second when they were flung out in front of him, and two heavy double action revolvers looked squarely into Comstock's smiling face.

Comstock had scarcely seemed to move. He still sat loosely in his chair, its front legs tilted back supported by his heels. But his hands had gone their swift, unerring way to the pockets of his coat, and into the barrels of the revolvers looked the blue steel barrels of two big automatics. And both men knew that, had this been no play, but deadly earnest, there would not have been the tenth of a second between the pistol shots.

"Pretty nearly an even break," laughed Comstock, dropping his guns back into his pockets.

Thornton rose and stood frowning down into the uplifted eyes of his visitor.

"It doesn't take a bullet long to go ten feet," he said a little sternly. "One man doesn't have to get his gun working half an hour before the other fellow." He came around the table and put out his hand.

"Shake," he said. "You could have got me. And I guess you're Two-Hand Billy, all right."

Comstock's eyes were bright with frank admiration.

"I don't know so well about getting you," he answered. "I played you to slip out on the other side of your chair. And," with his frank laugh, "I wouldn't care for the job of going out for you, Mr. Thornton."

"Real name, Buck," laughed the cowboy. "And now, let's talk."

"First name, Billy," returned Comstock. "And we'll talk in a minute.

First thing though, there's some mail for you!"

Thornton's eyes went the way of Comstock's, and saw a piece of folded notepaper upon the table, held in place by the lamp. He took it up, wondering, and read the few words swiftly. As he read the blood raced up into his face and Comstock smiled.

"I must see you," were the hastily written words. "I have wronged you all along. I haven't time to write, I am afraid to put it on paper. But there is great danger to you. Come tonight. I will be under the pear trees in the front yard, at twelve o'clock.

"WINIFRED WAVERLY."

Thornton whirled about, confronting Comstock.

"Where'd this come from?" he demanded sharply.

"Special delivery," smiled Comstock. "A young fellow, calling himself Bud King from the Bar X, brought it."

"When?"

"About an hour ago. He said he couldn't wait and couldn't take time to look you up, and I told him that I'd see that you got it."

Thornton read the short note again, frowning. This girl, only a few nights ago, had called him a liar, had angered him as thoroughly as she knew how, had sent him from her vowing that he was a fool to have ever thought of her, and that he'd die before he'd be fool to seek again to see the niece of Henry Pollard. And now this note, speaking of having wronged him, telling him that she was afraid to write all that she wanted to tell him, warning him of danger to him, asking him to meet her in Hill's Corners ... at her uncle's house ... at midnight!

He knew nothing of the danger to which she referred, but he did know that for him there was danger in going into Dead Man's Alley even in broad daylight. There came to him a swift suspicion that this note had never been written by the girl whose signature it bore, that it had been dictated by a man who sought to lure him to a spot where it would be an easy matter to put a bullet in him in safe, cowardly fashion. Suppose that he went, that he entered Pollard's place, and at such an hour?

Pollard, himself, could kill him, admit the deed and claim that he was but protecting his own premises. Any one of the Bedloe boys could shoot him and who would know?

Another suspicion, allied to this one, came and darkened the frown in his eyes. Was it possible that Winifred Waverly had written it, acting at Pollard's command? that she was but doing the sort of thing he should look to one of Pollard's blood to do?

Comstock, saying nothing further, now seemed entirely engrossed in his cigar. Thornton, the note in his fingers, hesitated. A third time he read the pencilled words. Then he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

"If a man wants to know anything real bad," he said at last, "it's up to him to go and find out, huh, Billy Comstock?"

Comstock, turning his cigar thoughtfully, answered:

"That's right, Buck."

Thornton glanced at his little alarm clock. It was not yet half past eight.

"I've got to be in the Corners by twelve o'clock," he said as he went back to his chair. "I'll ride Comet, though, and can make it handily in two hours. Now, what's the line of talk?"

Comstock's look trailed back to his cigar.

"I'm after a man," he volunteered.

"That's a safe bet. What man?"

"Not poor little Jimmie Clayton," smiled Comstock. "He's only a weak little fool at the worst, and wouldn't be a bad sort if he had somebody around all the time to steer him right."

"Who is he?" retorted Thornton steadily ... remembering.

"He's the man you owe a debt of grat.i.tude to," laughed Comstock. "He put some bullets through you one night down Texas way, found that he'd slipped up and that you'd put your money into a check, and then played safe by nursing you through it! The man who broke jail a month or so ago, and beat it up here to you to see him through. I'm _not_ after him."

"You seem to know a whole lot," answered Thornton noncommittally neither voice nor face nor eye showing a hint of surprise or other emotion. And yet he was thinking swiftly, that if this man spoke the truth he had a score to settle with Jimmie Clayton.

"Oh, it's my business to know a whole lot," resumed Comstock, answering the look in Thornton's eyes. "I just say that I'm not after Jimmie Clayton as I don't want you to think that you'll be giving away anything on a friend. The man I want," and he tilted his chair back a little farther, drew up his carefully creased trousers with thumb and forefinger and crossed one leg over the other, "is a man who got away from me seven years ago. Down in New Mexico."