“Could you keep a couple of people snug in there for a week or so?” “For a month, if you want it done.” “That is shust what ve have come to findt out about,” White-eyed Moses admitted, rubbing his hands together. “I guessed it.” “You dit?” “Sure thing.” “Vhat dit you guess?” “That the people you want me to care for back there air the man and the woman who have so mysteriously dropped out of sight recently.” “I’ll tell you how it is,” said Gopher Gabe, growing confidential now, drawing his stool nearer the other. “We have got them two, and it’s puzzlin’ us what to do with them.” “You might knock ’em on the head!” said Uncle Sam, with apparent callousness. “Lader, ve might,” admitted White-eyed Moses; “but not shust now. You see, ve don’t vandt to gommit murter, unless ve have to. It is a murter charge they have got ag’inst Juniper Joe.” “Yet you’ve been trying to kill Cody!” “I ditn’t finish what I was saying. Ve vant to hold them as some sort of hostages, you see. If ve git indo a hole that we gan’t crawl out of, ve gan, maype, use them to secure ower safety. You see the boint?” “I see that, all right.” “We’ve been holdin’ ’em in a room leadin’ off from that cellar which was searched to-night,” the saloon keeper told him. “Cody, when he was knockin’ round down there, hammered with his knuckles on the walls. He didn’t hit the right spot, or he would have tumbled. The thing is too risky. He will search the place again, and he’ll find that room. Then I’ll be in more trouble than I want.” “If I ton’dt kill him in the meantime!” said White-eyed Moses. “Moses will have to go into training, before he can qualify as a pistol expert,” said Gopher Gabe, with a skeptical laugh. “You mean that when he shoots at a man he hits the lamp beside him, or shoots through the window where he is sitting, and hits the wall? It would indicate that our friend Moses has got a bad case of shaking palsy in his trigger finger, when shooting times comes. He ought to get over it.” Uncle Sam’s gurgling laugh sounded again, as he concluded: “Why don’t you hire a substitute, Moses, who isn’t affected in that way?” he asked. “_I’ve_ tried to hire ’em,” the saloon keeper admitted. “But the men of this town are so paralyzed with fear whenever Cody comes in sight that money won’t buy ’em; they say they don’t want to die with their boots on. He has got a bad reputation as a quick gun man, and they don’t want to take the risks.” “Yet a bit of cool assassination couldn’t get ’em into trouble! I should think they would appreciate the fine art of downing a man in the dark, when he wasn’t looking. Drop a man that way, and he can’t shoot back, you know.” “I reckon you’re laughin’ about it.” “Oh, no! The thing is too serious to laugh about.” “White-eyed Moses is weakenin’ on the game himself. He come nigh gettin’ Cody’s lead yisterday.” “It vent t’rough my hat!” the rascal confessed. “And destroyed your nerve, eh?”