"I ain't a-goin' to sling no gun on you as long as you owe me money. I ain't a-goin' to cut the bottom out of m' own money-poke, Chad; you don't need to swivel up in your hide, you ain't marked for twenty-nine." "Well, don't throw out any more hints like that; I don't like that kind of a joke." "No, I wouldn't touch a hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible, face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and one of them sheriff fellers might slip up on me." "What's all this fool gab got to do with business?" Chadron was impatient; he looked at his watch. "Well, I'd be purty sure to make a speech from the gallers--I always intended to--and lay everything open that ever took place between me and you and the rest of them big fellers. There's a newspaper feller in Cheyenne that wants to make a book out of m' life, with m' pict're in the inside of the lid, to be sold when I'm dead. I could git money for tellin' that feller what I know." "Go on and tell him then,"--Chadron spoke with a dare in his words, and derision--"that'll be easy money, and it won't call for any nerve. But you don't need to be plannin' any speech from the gallus--you'll never go that fur if you try to double-cross me!" "I ain't aimin' to double-cross no man, but you can call it that if it suits you. You can call it whatever you purty damn well care to--I'm done!" Chadron made no reply to that. He was pulling on his great gloves, frowning savagely, as if he meant to close the matter with what he had said, and go. "Do I git any money, or don't I?" Thorn asked, sharply. "When you bring in that wolf's tail." "I ain't a-goin' to touch that feller, I tell you, Chad. That man means bad luck to me--I can read it in the cards." "Maybe you call that kind of skulkin' livin' up to your big name?" Chadron spoke in derision, playing on the vanity which he knew to be as much a part of that old murderer's life as the blood of his merciless heart. "I've got glory enough," said Thorn, satisfaction in his voice; "what I want right now's money." "Earn it before you collect it." "Twenty-eight 'd fill a purty fair book, countin' in what I could tell about the men I've had dealin's with," Thorn reflected, as to himself, leaning against the mantel, frowning down at the floor with bent head.