The silver dollar, with such zest had it been pitched upward, struck the ceiling and dropped to the floor, rolling. It rolled half across the room, both men springing after it, stooping to watch and know how fate decided matters between them. And in the end there was no decision at all. For the coin rolled half-way into a crack between the boards and stood thus, on edge, neither heads nor tails. "Flip her again," growled Bruce Standing, deep in his throat. "And step lively!" Already the horse's hoofs, as its rider plucked at the reins, were sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin and tossed it again. And this time, true to his word, and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing called before the silver dollar struck the floor: "Tails!" And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, and at last lay flat, and the two stooped over it so close that almost the black hair of one and the reddish hair of the other brushed, they saw that it was heads. And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, "Always heads!" had lost three thousand dollars. And at the instant their intruder burst in upon them from the road. Here, after his own strange fashion, came Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf's one-legged retainer. An able-bodied man and agile had been Billy Winch all of his hard life until, after a horse had fallen on him, the doctor had cut his leg off above the knee. "You'll go on crutches the rest of your life," they told him that day. And Billy Winch, weak and pale and sick and haggard-eyed, muttered at them: "You're a pack of damn liars! I'll cut my throat before I'll be a crutch-man." And he had kept his oath. Seldom did he stir save on the back of his horse. And when needs must that he go horseless some few steps, he went "like a man, one-leg style, hopping!" Now, hopping on his one foot so that, with his pinched, weazened face and small bright eyes, he resembled some uncouth bird, he bounced into the room. "I got word for you, Bruce Standing!" he cried excitedly. "Clear out, you fool...." "I won't clear out! This is the real thing. Listen: A man, and it was a man paid by Young Gallup, has just went down the road with a double-barrel shotgun, and the dirty skunk has shot your horse, good old Sunlight ... dead!" By now Billy Winch was whimpering; tears, whether of rage or grief, filled his bright eyes and streamed down his face. And all the while, to maintain his balance, he was hopping unsteadily about, his outflung hand groping for the wall.