"I know I am. He's a gold mine, this kid is. But we got to buy him with something more than gold. And I know what that something is. I'm going to show him that the good, lawabiding citizens have made up their minds that he's no good; that they're all ag'in' him; and when he finds that out, he'll go wild. They ain't no doubt of it. He'll show his teeth! And when he shows his teeth, he'll taste blood--they ain't no doubt of it." "Going to make him--kill?" asked Pollard very softly. "Why not? He'll do it sooner or later anyway. It's in his blood." "I suppose it is." "I got an idea. There's a young gent in town named Larrimer, ain't there?" "Sure. A rough kid, too. It was him that killed Kennedy last spring." "And he's proud of his reputation?" "Sure. He'd go a hundred miles to have a fight with a gent with a good name for gunplay." "Then hark to me sing, Joe! Send Terry into town to get something for you. I'll drop in ahead of him and find Larrimer, and tell Larrimer that Black Jack's son is around--the man that dropped Sheriff Minter. Then I'll bring 'em together and give 'em a running start." "And risk Terry getting his head blown off?" "If he can't beat Larrimer, he's no use to us; if he kills Larrimer, it's good riddance. The kid is going to get bumped off sometime, anyway. He's bad--all the way through." Pollard looked with a sort of wonder on his companion. "You're a nice, kind sort of a gent, ain't you, Denver?" "I'm a moneymaker," asserted Denver coldly. "And, just now, Terry Hollis is my gold mine. Watch me work him!" CHAPTER 27 It was some time before Terry could sleep, though it was now very late. When he put out the light and slipped into the bed, the darkness brought a bright flood of memories of the day before him. It seemed to him that half a lifetime had been crowded into the brief hours since he was fired on the ranch that morning. Behind everything stirred the ugly face of Denver as a sort of controlling nemesis. It seemed to him that the chunky little man had been pulling the wires all the time while he, Terry Hollis, danced in response. Not a flattering thought. Nervously, Terry got out of bed and went to the window. The night was cool, cut crisp rather than chilling. His eye went over the velvet blackness of the mountain slope above him to the ragged line of the crest--then a dizzy plunge to the brightness of the stars beyond. The very sense of distance was soothing; it washed the gloom and the troubles away from him. He breathed deep of the fragrance of the pines and then went back to his bed. He had hardly taken his place in it when the sleep began to well up over his brain--waves of shadows running out of corners of his mind. And then suddenly he was wide awake, alert. Someone had opened the door. There had been no sound; merely a change in the air currents of the room, but there was also the sense of another presence so clearly that Terry almost imagined he could hear the breathing.