Glass broke abruptly into smothered merriment. "When I laugh nowadays it's a funny joke," he giggled. That grown men could be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused to anger. "Lawrence, get my coat," said he. "I've been bullied enough; I'm going up to the house." When Stover only continued whittling methodically, he burst out: "Stop honing that shin-bone! If you like it you can eat it! I'm going now to swallow a stack of hot cakes with maple syrup!" "Mr. Speed," Willie impaled him with a steady glare, "you'll eat what we tell you to, and nothin' else! If we say 'grass,' grass it'll be. You're goin' to beat one Skinner if it takes a human life. And if that life happens to be yours, you got nobody but yourself to blame." "Indeed!" "You heard me! I've been set to ride herd on you daytimes, the other boys'll guard you nights. We been double-crossed once--it won't happen again." "Then it amounts to this, does it: I'm your prisoner?" "More of a prized possession," offered Stover. "If you ain't got the loy'lty to stand by us, we got to _make_ you! This diet is part of the programme. Now if you think beef is too hearty for this time of day, tear into them eggs." "You intend to make me eat this disgusting stuff, whether I want to or not?" Even yet the youth could not convince himself that this was other than a joke. "No." Willie shook his head. "We just aim to make you _want_ to eat it." Then Larry Glass made his fatal mistake. "Say, why don't you let Mr. Speed buy you a new phonograph, and call the race off?" he inquired. Stover, stricken dumb, paused, knife in hand; Willie stared as if bereft of motion. Then the former spoke slowly. "Looks like we'd ought to smoke up this fat party, Will." Willie nodded, and Glass realized that the little man's steel- blue eyes were riveted balefully upon him. "I've had a hunch it would come to that," the near-sighted one replied. "Every time I look at him I see a bleedin' bullet-hole in his abominable regions, about here." He laid a finger upon his stomach, and Glass felt a darting pain at precisely the same spot. It was as agonizing as if Willie's spectacles were huge burning-glasses focussing the rays of a tropic sun upon his bare flesh. He folded protecting hands over the threatened region and backed toward the prayer-rug, mumbling "Allah! Allah!" No matter whither he shifted, the eyes bored into him. "That's where you hit the gambler at Ogden," he heard Stover say --it might have been from a great distance--"but I aim for the bridge of the nose." "The belly ain't so sudden as the eye-socket, but it's more lingerin', and a heap painfuller," explained the gun man, and Speed was moved to sympathy. "Larry only wanted to please you--eh, Larry?" he said, nervously, but Glass made no reply. His distended orbs were frozen upon Willie. It was doubtful if he even heard. "Our honor ain't for sale," Still Bill declared.