When the Tomcat unfolded his plans to bring back the scalp of Mr. Masterson, Mr. Cook first stared and then went off into a gale of laughter. He almost forgot his valued Shylock. “You bump off Bat Masterson!” he exclaimed. “Why, Tomcat, it needs the sharpest hand on the Canadian for that job, needs somebody as good as Old Tom Harris. Better go back to camp an’ sleep it off. Bat Masterson would down you like cuttin’ kyards.” The Tomcat, however, did not waver. Relieved when he noted the mollified vein of Mr. Cook, he urged his claim for the Shylock pony. “Say ‘yes,’ Jack,” said the Tomcat, “an’ I’ll be back in a month with that Bat Masterson’s top-knot dangling from Shylock’s bits.” “Well,” remarked Mr. Cook, giving space in the arroya for the Tomcat to pass, “onder the circumstances you-all can have Shylock. I don’t feel like refusin’ the last request of a dyin’ man. Ride on, an’ may your luck break even with your nerve.” The Tomcat went his northward path, but in the treacherous hollows of his heart he hated Mr. Cook. The Tomcat raged for that he could not face a white of the pure blood without turning craven to the bone. It was that recreant cross in his veins; he knew, but couldn’t cure the defect. He could hold his own with a Comanche, he could bully a Mexican to a standstill, but his heart became the heart of a hare whenever the cold, gray-eyed gaze of one of clean white strain fell across him in hostility. Halted by the high-tempered Mr. Cook, the Tomcat had fair melted in his saddle; and, while he gained his point and the pony, his wolfish soul was set none the less on fire. “If I’d had two drinks in me I’d shot it out with him,” considered the Tomcat by way of consoling himself. “I’d have filled him as full of lead as a bag of bullets! After I come back I’ll nacherally take a crack at Johnny Cook. He won’t front up to me so plumb confident an’ gala after I’ve killed Bat Masterson.” Dodge took no absorbing interest in the Tomcat. His kind was frequent in its causeways, and the Tomcat as a specimen owned no attributes beyond the common save an inordinate appetite for liquor and a Ballard rifle. He could drink more whisky than was the custom of Dodge; also, the Ballard attracted attention in a region where every fool used a Winchester and every wise man a Sharp’s. But neither the Tomcat’s capacity for strong drink nor yet his rifle could hold public curiosity for long, and within ten minutes after he strode into the Alhambra and called for his initial drink Dodge lost concern in him and turned to its own affairs. The Tomcat, now he was in Dodge, seemed in little haste to search out Mr. Masterson. This was in no wise strange; for one thing his Shylock pony needed rest. Shylock had been put in Mr. Trask’s corral and, gorging on alfalfa, was bravely filling out the hollows of his flanks.