The men from the Halfmoon D were due back and inside of an hour they rode off, leaving only Harris's men and the five card-players in the place. Harris walked over to the table and the Three Bar men shifted positions, slouching sidewise at the bar or leaning with their backs to it, alertly watching this unexpected move as the foreman spoke to the albino. "Let's you and I draw off and have a little talk," he said. "If you can spare the time." Harper looked up at him in silence. He carefully tilted up the corner of his hole-card and peeked at it, then turned his other cards face down on the table. "Pass," he said, and rose to face Harris. "Lead the way." Harris moved over to another table and the two men sat down, facing each other across it. He motioned to Evans and Lanky joined them. Harris plunged abruptly into what he had to say. "First off, Harper, I want you to get it straight that I'm not fool enough to threaten you--for I know you're not any more afraid of me than I am of you. This is just a little explaining, a business talk, so we'll both know where we stand. It's up to you whether we let each other alone or fight." "Good start," the albino commented. "Go right on." "All right--it's like this," Harris resumed. "I'm going to have my hands full without you hiring out to pester us. I'm not out to reform the country. They set the fashion of dog eat dog and every man for himself; so the Three Bar is all that interests me. You keep out of my affairs and I'll let you go your own gait. If you mix in I'll have your men hunted down like rats." Harper glanced toward the group at the bar. "You were prudent enough to pick a time when you're three to one to tell me about that," he said. "If I'd kill you in your chair I might have some trouble getting out the door." "Of course I'd take every chance to play safe," Harris admitted. "But that is beside the point. I'd have told you the same thing if the odds had been reversed." "Would you?" the albino pondered. "I wonder." "You know I would," Harris stated. "You've got brains, or you'd have been dead for twenty years. If I thought you were a haphazard homicide I wouldn't be sitting here. But you wouldn't kill a man without looking a few weeks ahead and making sure it was safe." "Go ahead--Let's hear the rest of it," Harper urged. "You've got an original line of talk."