And with that, still smiling at his own folly in a rather shamefaced way, he turned in the blankets and dropped the big coil of the lariat over a nail which projected from the boards just over the head of his bunk. The noose was outermost and could be disengaged from the nail by a single twist of the cowpuncher's hand as he lay passive in the bunk. On this noose Bard cast a curious eye. To cityfolk a piece of rope is a harmless thing with which one may make a trunk secure or on occasion construct a clothes line on the roof of the apartment building, or in the kitchen on rainy Mondays. To a sailor the rope is nothing and everything at once. Give a seaman even a piece of string and he will amuse himself all evening making lashings and knots. A piece of rope calls up in his mind the stout lines which hold the masts steady and the yards true in the gale, the comfortable cable which moors the ship at the end of the dreary voyage, and a thousand things between. To the Westerner a rope is a different thing. It is not so much a useful material as a weapon. An Italian, fighting man to man, would choose a knife; a Westerner would take in preference that same harmless piece of rope. In his hands it takes on life, it gains a strange and sinister quality. One instant it lies passive, or slowly whirled in a careless circle--the next its noose darts out like the head of a striking cobra, the coil falls and fastens, and then it draws tighter and tighter, remorselessly as a boa constrictor, paralyzing life. Something of all this went through the mind of Bard as he lay watching the limp noose of the cowboy's lariat, and then he nodded smiling. "I suppose that seems an odd habit to some men, but I sympathize with it. I have it myself, in fact. And whenever I'm out in the wilds and carry a gun I like to have it under my head when I sleep. That's even queerer than your fancy, isn't it?" And he slipped his revolver under the blankets at the head of his bunk. CHAPTER XIX THE CANDLE "Yes," said Nash, "that's a queer stunt, because when you're lyin' like that with your head right over the gun and the blankets in between, it'd take you a couple of seconds to get it out." "Not when you're used to it. You'd be surprised to see how quickly a man can get the gun out from under." "That so?" "Yes, and shooting while you're lying on your back is pretty easy, too, when you've had practice." "Sure, with a rifle, but not with a revolver." "Well, do you see that bit of paper in the corner there up on the rafter?" "Yes." The hand of Bard whipped under his head, there was a gleam and whirl of steel, an explosion, and the bit of paper came fluttering slowly down from the rafter, like a wounded bird struggling to keep upon the air. A draft caught the paper just before it landed and whirled it through the doorless entrance and out into the night.