"You wouldn't know, Joe, unless you'd been sheriff as long as me, how many nice little ways there are of making a man hurry up about spitting up all he knows!" Taggart was steadily cramming into his mouth the half-cooked dried beef stew, appearing to have entirely forgotten his dislike for garlic. "Me, I'm a man of brains and what you call invention; I look around and see what I've got handy, and out of it I make what I need! Now, look here. You see us boys eating hearty, and, if I know what that look means in a man's eye, you got an appetite yourself? Well, you don't get a scrap to eat nor a drink to drink until you open up." Joe sought to laugh at him. Taggart, still stuffing, went on steadily: "Next, you see the stove with its hot lids? All right, pretty quick we hold you so the palms of your hands stick to the hot lids and the skin burns off. Oh, I know that don't hurt so much a man can't stand it; sure not. But it does sort to set him to thinking things over in a new fashion! And then, what next?" "Make him eat salt," put in Shipton with a snicker. "And don't give him any water! Lots of salt does the trick, Jimmie." Taggart, a man of no subtlety, snorted at him. "Maybe you can tell gold when you see it, Cliff," he said briefly. "But that's all you do know.... Listen to me, Mexico. We got our rifles, ain't we? We stand you with your back to the wall and dare you to move! Then we practise shooting; just to see how close we can come! We don't hit you, us three being good shots. Anyway, we don't hit you often, and then it's only grazes! We make a game out of it; every man takes a shot and him that comes closest gets a dollar every time; him that draws blood puts up two dollars in the pot. And, pretty soon.... What are you looking so sick for, Joe? Nobody ain't hurt you yet!" Joe's curses were suddenly faint, for Joe's mouth and throat were dry and he had grown limp and dizzy and sick. "You see, I got you, Joe. Got you dead to rights!" "The brute!" whispered Lynette, her own flesh set twitching. "The horrible brute!" "Sh! Just listen!" "I don't believe he'd actually do that! He is just frightening Joe--bluffing...." "You the sheriff!" cried Joe, desperate. "You the one bigges' robber in all these mount'!" "Call me robber, will you, you skunk!" Again they heard the sound of the blow, struck fiercely by Jim Taggart, who, as he let all men understand, was the last man to brook an insult. And they heard Joe's slight body hurled back, so that he toppled and fell. And, thereafter, Taggart's brutish laughter. To-night, Jim Taggart, no matter how disgruntled he had been during so many hours, was at last enjoying himself. For to-night he was secure in his expectations. "You bleed awful easy, Joe," he jeered. "Ought to go get your teeth straightened up, too! Cup of coffee? No? Then I'll take one; _gracias, mi amigo!_" "I hope you burn in hell!" screamed Joe.