Uncle Jap unlocked the door of the vestry and let us in.  Leveson sat huddled up in his chair.  Uncle Jap prodded him with the ancient pistol which he still held in his hands.

“Can’t you offer a lady a chair?” he said testily.  Leveson offered his chair, upon the extreme edge of which Mrs. Panel deprecatingly seated herself.  Uncle Jap eyed her with wrinkled interrogation.

“What in thunder brought ye to San Lorenzy?”

Mrs. Panel twisted her fingers.

“I looked in the drawer, an’ I see that,” she indicated the weapon, “was missin’.”

“Did ye?  Now, Lily Panel, you don’t mean to tell me that you thought I was goin’ ter murder this feller?”

Mrs. Panel looked at Leveson with an expression which I have seen in the eyes of foothill mothers, whose children run barefoot, when they have found a rattlesnake.  Then she drawled out:  “Wal, I hoped you might, but——­”

“Why, Lily!  You hoped I might?”

“Yes; but I feared you’d git murdered first.  Oh Jaspar, I didn’t know you was sech a man.”

She stood up, her eyes were shining, her face radiant “Fergive me, but I reckoned you—­was—­petered—­out?”

“Petered out—­me?”

“Yas; I’m a silly, fullish woman.”

“No, you ain’t.  Petered out—­me?  Wal,” he glanced at Leveson, “somebody is petered out, but it ain’t me.  Did ye ever see a man scairt worse’n him?  I scairt the wizard some; yas I did, but he could run:  this feller can’t crawl, I reckon.  An’ this yere Colt wan’t loaded then, an’ it ain’t loaded—­now.  Look!  What an appetite I hev!  Who says supper?  Now, mister,” he addressed Leveson, “seein’ as the starch is outer you, I’ll give ye my arm as fur as the Paloma.”

“Leave me,” gurgled Leveson.

“I’m too good a Christian.  In the state yer in it’d kill ye to meet somebody else ye’ve robbed.  It’s too risky.”

“Go, you scoundrel!  Authority was returning to his voice; the old arrogance gleamed in his eyes.

“Scoundrel—­hay?” Uncle Jap’s voice became savage.  “You come along with me—­quick an’ quiet.  This old Colt ain’t loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ye’ll think it is.  Come!”

In silence the four of us marched up to the Paloma, and into the big hall where a dozen men were smoking.  Uncle Jap addressed the clerk in a loud, clear voice.

“Mr. Leveson,” he said, “has just concluded a leetle deal with me.  He’s bought Sunny Bushes an’ the lake of ile for two hundred and fifteen thousand and one hundred dollars.  Here is his note.  Put it in the safe for me till to-morrer.”

The chatter in the big room had ceased long before Uncle Jap had finished.  More than one man present divined that something quite out of the ordinary had taken place.  Leveson moistened his lips with his tongue.  His chance had come.  Had he chosen to repudiate the note, had he denounced Uncle Jap as obtaining at the pistol point what could be obtained in no other way, the law of the land would have released him from his bond.  But Uncle Jap had read him aright:  he was a coward.