"Nor no more do I!" said Dan, turning on Apache Kid. "Nor no more do I. And if the loss o’ the hosses don’t cut any figure to you, it don’t no more to us, for we ’re goin’ through with you right to the end." But I thought that a something about his underlip, as I saw it in the shadows of the fire, belied his strong statement. Apache Kid was of my opinion, for he looked keenly in Dan’s face and remarked: "A very good bluff, Daniel." "Don’t you Daniel me!" cried the man. "You ’re gettin’ too derned fresh and frisky and gettin’ to fancy yourself." "That’s right. A bluff should be sustained," said Apache Kid, insolently, and then dropping the conversation, as though it were of absolutely no moment, he rolled himself again in his blanket. And this he had no sooner done—unconcerned, untroubled, heedless of any possible villainy of these two men—than Pinkerton’s voice spoke behind me: "He ’s a good man spoiled, is that Apache Kid. I could ha’ been doin’ with a son like that." "I think you ’re kind o’ a soft mark, right enough," sneered Farrell to the now recumbent form of Apache Kid. "I think you ’re too soft to scare me." Apache Kid was up in a moment. "Soft!" he cried, "soft!" And on his face was the look that he gave the Italian livery-stable keeper at Camp Kettle, only, as the saying is, _more_ so. I heard Donoghue gasp, you would have thought more in fear than in exultation: "Say! When he gets this ways you want to be back out of his way." "Look at me!" said Apache, standing up. "You see I ’ve got on no belt; my gun’s lying there with the belt. I ’ve got no knife—nothing. Will you stand up, sir, and let me show you if I ’m soft, seeing that I have given you my word—not to kill you?" You should have heard the way these last words came from him. "Will you stand up and let me just hammer you within an inch of your end?" Farrell did not quail; I will do him that justice. But he sat considering, and then he jerked his head and jerked it again doggedly, and, "No," he said, "no, I reckon not." The fire of anger had leapt quick enough to life in Apache Kid, and it seemed to ebb as suddenly. "All right," he said. "All right. Perhaps it is better so. It would dirty my hands to touch you. And indeed," he was moving back to his place now, "lead is too clean for you as well." He turned as he reached where his blankets lay. "Farrell," he said, "it is at the end of a rope that you will die." *CHAPTER XV* _*In Which the Tables Are turned—at Some Cost*_ After that peace came, and I dozed again. It was a shot, followed by a scream, that awoke me; and those kind gods who guard us in our sleep and in our waking caused me even at that moment not to obey the sudden impulse to leap up. Instead, I flung my hand to my revolver and lay flat—and in doing so saved my life.