Pierre eyed them in turn, and then he spoke directly to big Dick Wilbur. "Here's the first: I want to bury a man in Morgantown and I need help to do it." Black Gandil snarled: "You heard me, boys; blood to start with. Who's the man you want us to put out?" "He's dead--my father." They came up straight in their chairs like trained actors rising to a stage crisis. The snarl straightened on the lips of Black Morgan Gandil. "He's lying in his house a few miles out of Morgantown. As he died he told me that he wanted to be buried in a corner plot in the Morgantown graveyard. He'd seen the place and counted it for his a good many years because he said the grass grew quicker there than any other place, after the snow went." "A damned good reason," said Garry Patterson. As the idea stuck more deeply into his imagination he smashed his fist down on the table so that the crockery on it danced. "A damned good reason, say I!" "Who's your father?" asked Dick Wilbur, who eyed Pierre more critically but with less enmity than the rest. "Martin Ryder." "A ringer!" cried Bud Mansie, and he leaned forward alertly. "You remember what I said, Jim?" "Shut up. Pierre, talk soft and talk quick. We all know Mart Ryder had only two sons and you're not either of them." The Northerner grew stiff and as his face grew pale the red mark where the stone had struck his forehead stood out like a danger signal. He said slowly: "I'm his son, but not by the mother of those two." "Was he married twice?" Pierre was paler still, and there was an uneasy twitching of his right hand which every man understood. He barely whispered. "No; damn you!" But Black Gandil loved evil. He said, with a marvelously unpleasant smile: "Then she was--" The voice of Dick Wilbur cut in like the snapping of a whip: "Shut up, Gandil, you devil!" There were times when not even Boone would cross Wilbur, and this was one of them. Pierre went on: "The reason I can't go to Morgantown is that I'm not very well liked by some of the men there." "Why not?" "When my father died there was no money to pay for his burial. I had only a half-dollar piece. I went to the town and gambled and won a great deal. But before I came out I got mixed up with a man called Hurley, a professional gambler." "And Diaz?" queried a chorus. "Yes. Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died. I think I'm wanted in Morgantown." Out of a little silence came the voice of Black Gandil: "Dick, I'm thankin' you now for cuttin' me so short a minute ago." Phil Branch had not spoken, as usual, but now he repeated, with rapt, far-off eyes: "'Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died?' Hurley and Diaz! I played with Hurley, a couple of times." "Speakin' personal," said Garry Patterson, his red verging toward purple in excitement, "which I'm ready to go with you down to Morgantown and bury your father." "And do it shipshape," added Black Gandil.