"I wasn't scared," defended Bill. "But I wasn't takin' no chances for th' glory of it. He never done nothin' to me, an' I ain't on Kane's payroll--yet." "An' you ain't goin' to be, I reckon," laughed another. Fisher's face proclaimed that he had solved whatever problem there might be in Bill's lack of action. "Ain't had a chance to get it from him yet, huh?" he asked. Sneering, he gave a warning as he turned away. "An' don't you try for it, neither. If he won't come back here no more, I can get him playin' somewhere else." Red arose fully and stretched, hearing a slight grating noise at a loophole in the partition behind him, where the slide dropped into place. "I'm dry; bone dry," he announced. "I never was so dry before. All in favor of a drink, step up. I'm payin' for _this_ round." All were in favor of it, and the bartender moved slowly behind the counter toward the front door, his head bent over far to the right. "Don't see him; but we better wait till Thorpe comes back. Great guns! Did you _see_ it!" he marveled. "I can see it better now than I could then," said Red, leaning against the bar. "Come on, boys; he's done gone. This means you, too, Long; 'though I ain't sayin' you hardly earned it. If he saw you before he backed up, I says he's got eyes in his ears. Why, cuss it, he was lookin' plumb at _me_ all th' time. You got too hefty an imagination, Long." Out in the street Johnny, backing swiftly from the building, saw Bill Long's sudden leap and fired, for moral effect, at the place vacated. Yanking his captive's gun from its holster, he was about to toss it aside when his fingers gripped the telltale butt and a colder look gleamed in his eyes. Slipping his right-hand gun into its holster he gripped the captured weapon affectionately, and then hazarded a quick glance around him. Someone was riding rapidly down the trail from the north, and a second sidewise glance told him that it was Idaho. "Faster, you!" he growled to the doorkeeper. "Keep a-comin'--keep a-comin'. One false move an' Kane'll need another sentry. You may be able to make Bill Long climb up a wall, but I ain't in his class." Idaho, who was riding in to appease his burning curiosity, felt its flames lick instantly higher as he saw his friend back swiftly from Kane's front door, with Thorpe apparently hooked on the sight of the six-gun. Drawing rein instantly in his astonishment, he at once loosened them and whirled into the scanty and scrawny vegetation on the far side of the trail. Going at a dead run he sent the wiry little pony over piles of cans, around cacti and other larger obstructions until he reached the rear of Red Frank's, facing on the next street. Here he pulled up and drew the Winchester from its scabbard, feeling that Johnny was capable of taking care of Kane's if not interfered with from behind.