"Your advice was worthless under the circumstances; that's why I didn't take it." Rexhill deliberately paused and lighted his cigar, from which he took several soothing puffs. To have been aroused from his bed with such news had flustered him somewhat; but he had never known anything worth while to come out of a heated discussion, and he sought now to calm himself. Finally, he spoke slowly. "What you proposed to me then was a frame-up, and all frame-ups are dangerous, particularly when they have little to rest upon. For that reason I refused to fall in with your ideas, Race. This release of Santry from jail is--or was--an entirely different thing, an overt criminal act, with Sheriff Thomas on our side as an unimpeachable witness." Moran was suffering too keenly from his wound and smarting under his defeat too much to be altogether reasonable. His manner was fast losing the appearance of respect which he had previously shown his employer. His expression was becoming heated and contemptuous. "You didn't base your refusal on logic at the time, Senator," he said. "It was sentiment, if I remember right. Wade had broken bread with you, and all that. I don't see but what that applies just as well now as it did then." "It doesn't," the Senator argued smugly, still rankling from Wade's arraignment of him the day before, "because even hospitality has its limits of obligation. So long as I knew Wade to be innocent, I did not care to have him arrested; but I don't admit any sentiment of hospitality which compels me to save a _known_ criminal from the hand of justice. Sheriff Thomas came in to see me last night and I agreed with him that Wade should be brought to account for his contempt of the law. Wade forced his way into the jail and released his foreman at the point of a gun. Even so, I feel sorry for Wade and I am a little apprehensive of the consequences that will probably develop from his foolhardiness." "Well, by God, if there's any sympathy for him floating around this room, it all belongs to you, Senator." Moran tenderly fingered his aching wrist. "I'm not one of these 'turn the other cheek' guys; you can gamble on that!" "But now where are we?" Rexhill ignored the other's remarks entirely. "We are but little better off than Wade is. He pulled Santry out of jail, and we tried to steal his ranch. The only difference is that so far he has succeeded, and we have failed. He has as much law on his side now as we have on ours."