"No, it ain't enough. It ain't enough by a long mile. I want to know who told you?" "I ain't sayin'." Sullenly. "Come to think, she's hardly necessary. Doc Coffin and Honey Hoke were the only two gents in the Starlight at the time. It was either one or both of 'em told you. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask 'em about it later. Now I dunno whether you'll believe it or not but to tell the truth and be plain with you, Bull, I didn't kick you." "I don't believe you." But Bull's tone was not confident. "I wouldn't expect you to--under the circumstances. What I'm tellin' you is true alla same. Lookit, you fool, is it likely after takin' the trouble to knock you down, I'd kick you besides? Do I look like a sport who'd do a thing like that? Think it over." Bull was silent. But Racey believed that he had planted the seed of doubt in his mind. "And another thing," resumed Racey, "do I look like a sport who'd let another jigger lay for him promiscuous? You go slow, Bull. I'm good-natured, a heap good-natured. But don't lemme catch you bushwhacking me again." "I won't," said Bull with a flash of humour. "Be dead shore of it," cautioned Racey. "If I ever get to even thinking that yo're laying for me, Bull, I'm liable to come a-askin' questions you can't answer. Yo're a bright young man, Bull, but you want to be careful how you strain yore intellect. You might need it some day. And if you want to keep on being mother's li'l helper, be good, thassall, be good." "Yo're worse'n a helldodger," affirmed Bull. "You got me sized up right. I'm worse than a helldodger, a whole lot worse." The words were playful, but the tone was sardonic. Bull grunted. "You tell me, will you, just where it was you met this Bill Smith-Jack Harpe feller, and what it was he did? There's a company in it, too. What company is it--the Northern Pacific?" "Ah-h, you got a gall, you have," sneered Bull, savagely. "Think you'll make something out of Harpe yore own self, huh?" "That is my idea," admitted Racey. "Well, you got a gall, thassall I gotta say." "You forget you've got a gall, too, when you try to bushwhack me," Racey reminded him. "I'm trying to play even for that." "Try away." "You seem to make it hard for me kind of," grinned Racey. "Of course I'd enjoy makin' it easy for you all I could," observed Bull with sarcasm. "I dunno as I'd go so far as to say _that_," was the Dawson comment. "But maybe it's possible to persuade you to tell me what you know." "It ain't." "Suppose I decided to leave you here." "You won't." Confidently. "Why not?" "Because you ain't shootin' a unarmed man." "Yet you think I'm the boy to kick one that's down." "Sometimes I change my mind," said Bull with a harsh laugh. "You laugh as loud as that again," said Racey, irritably, "and you'll change somethin' besides yore mind. Don't be too trusting a jake, Bull, not too trusting. I might surprise you yet. About that information now--I want it."