"Speaking of knives, now," he continued in a confiding tone, "I got in a ruckus down near the border once an' some gents started after me. One of 'em got pretty close--close enough to take some skin off my shoulder with a bullet. He just sort of compelled me to shoot back." "I suppose you killed him," observed the jailer, pausing in his work of sharpening the pencil. "I ain't saying," replied Rathburn. "Anyways I had a hole-up down there for a few days, an' as luck would have it, I had to put up with a Mexican. All that Mex would do was argue that a knife was better than a gun. He claimed it was sure and made no noise--those were his hardest talking points, an' I'll be danged if there isn't something in it. "But what I was gettin' at is that I didn't have nothing to do, an' that Mexican got me to practicing knife throwing. You know how slick those fellows are at throwing a blade. Well, in the couple of weeks that I hung aroun' there he coached me along till I could throw a knife as good as he could. He thought it was great sport, teaching me to throw a knife so good, that a way. "Since I left down there I've sort of practiced that knife-throwing business now and then, just for fun. Anyways I thought it was just for fun. But now I see, jailer, that it was my luck protecting me. Anything you learn is liable to prove handy some time. _Don't move an inch or I'll let you have it!_" Rathburn's hand snapped out of his shirt and up above his right shoulder. The man from the desert shuddered involuntarily as he saw the yellow light from the lamp play fitfully upon a keen, white blade. CHAPTER XII AGAINST HIS ETHICS Rathburn's eyes held the other's as completely as would have been the case if he were invested with a power to charm in some occult way. Moreover, every trace of his amiable, confiding smile was gone. His gaze was hard and cold and gleaming. His face was drawn into grim lines. When he spoke he talked smoothly, rapidly, and with an edge to his words which convinced his listener that he was in deadly earnest. "I'm not used to jails, my friend, an' I don't aim to stay here. You're not very far away an' these bars are wide enough for me to miss 'em; but I don't think I could miss you." The jailer looked in horror at the gleaming knife which Rathburn held by its hilt with the blade pointing backward. The jailer was from the border; he knew the awful possibilities of a quick motion of the wrist in that position, a half turn of the knife as it streaked toward its target. He shuddered again. "Now just edge this way about two steps so your holster will be against the bars," Rathburn instructed. "I can drop you where you stand, reach through the bars an' drag you close if need be; but I'm banking on you having some good sense." The jailer, without moving the hands which held the pencil and his pocketknife, sidled up against the bars.