With his small hand well spread over the page of the book he was consulting, he had become oblivious to his surroundings when suddenly a man stood in the doorway. He was tall and gaunt and wore a broad-brimmed hat, a cotton checked shirt, jean trousers supported by a raw-hide belt, and a pair of tall boots which, as he stood fiercely eying Garner, he angrily lashed with his riding-whip. It was Dan Willis. His face was slightly flushed from drink, and his eyes had the glare even his best friends had learned to tear and tried to avoid. “Whar's that that dude pardner o' yourn?” he asked. “Oh, you mean Dwight!” Garner had had too much experience in the handling of men to change countenance over any sudden turn of affairs, either for or against his interests, and he had, also, acquired admirable skill in most effective temporizing. “Why, let me see, Dan,” he went on, after he had paused for fully a moment, carefully inspected the lines he was reading, frowned as if not quite satisfied therewith, and then slowly turned down a leaf. “Let me think. Oh, you want to see Carson! Sit down; take a chair.” “I don't want to set down!” Willis thundered. “I want to see that damned dude, and I want to see him right off.” “Oh, that's it!” said Garner. “You are in a _hurry!_” And then, from the rigid setting of his jaw, it was plain that the lawyer had decided on the best mode of handling the specimen glowering down upon him. “Oh yes, I remember now, Willis, that you were loaded up a few nights ago looking for that chap. Now, advice is cheap--that is, the sort I'm going to give you. Under ordinary circumstances I'd charge a fee for it. My advice to you is to straddle that horse of yours and get out of this town. You are looking for trouble--great, big, far-reaching trouble.” “You hit the nail that pop, Bill Garner,” the mountaineer snorted. “I'm expectin' to git trouble, or _give_ trouble, an' I hain't goin' to lose time nuther. This settlement was due several days ago, but got put off.” “Look here, Willis”--Garner stood up facing him--“you may not be a fool, but you are acting powerfully like one. You are letting that measly little candidate for the legislature make a cat's-paw of you. That's what you're doing. He knows, if he can get up a shooting-scrap between you and my pardner over that negro-whipping business, it will turn a few mountain votes his way. If you get shot, Wiggin will have more charges to make; and if Carson was to get the worst of it, the boy would be clean out of the skunk's way. You and Wiggin are both in bad business.” “Well, that's _my_ lookout!” the mountaineer growled, beside himself in rage. “Carson Dwight said I was with Johnson the night the gang came in and whipped them coons, and--” “Well, you _were_,” said Garner, as suddenly as if he were browbeating a witness. “What's the use to lie about it?” “Lie--you say I--?”