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The evil eyes gloated, the long fingers clutched the pile, and swept it into a great inside pocket. Then the shaggy head bent forwards. "You said it was for Dan," he said "Dan Welldon?" Rawley hesitated. "What is that to you?" he replied at last. With a sudden impulse the old impostor lurched round, opened a box, drew out a roll, and threw it on the table.
She's had enough to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on the other side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that Flood Rawley had got his deserts. It's different with you." His voice changed, softened. "Dan, I made a pledge to her that I'd never play cards again for money while I lived, and it wasn't a thing to take on without some cogitation.
Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the old man's head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments on the walls they at least were bright and clean and, taking the cheroot slowly from his mouth, he said: "Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a trap."
"And stake what's left on the last throw?" "Yes." There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older, and a set look came to his mouth a broken pledge, no matter what the cause, brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for an instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler was watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile.
The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but the words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said to Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. He stepped forward and, gripping Dan's shoulder with a hand of steel, said, fiercely: "No, Dan. I'd rather take you to her in your coffin.
Hadn't we best make sure?" "Perhaps you'd better let him vamoose," said Flood Rawley anxiously. "Jansen is a law-abiding place!" The reply was decisive. Jansen had its honour to keep. It was the home of the Pioneers Laura Sloly was a Pioneer.
When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. "I haven't been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law is on my side as yet, it isn't on yours. There's the difference." "You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn't to walk up my back with hobnailed boots." "Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here.
When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. "I haven't been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law is on my side as yet, and it isn't on yours. There's the difference." "You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn't to walk up my back with hobnailed boots." "Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here.
"It's got to be known sometime," he said, "and you'll be my lawyer when I'm put into the ground you're clever. They call me a quack. Malpractice bah! There's my diploma James Clifton Welldon. Right enough, isn't it?" Rawley was petrified.
But you've had a lot of luck that you haven't swung high, too." He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering. "You've got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind however you came by them," Rawley continued; "and you've kept a lot of people in the West from passing in their checks before their time.
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