“Let’s go,” said Racey Dawson.  “We’ll go to yore saloon first.  And you pray hard that nobody sees us from the back window.”

They diagonalled down past the stage company’s corral to the house next door to the Starlight.

“They haven’t seen us yet,” Racey observed, cheerfully, to Rack Slimson whose wretched knees had been knocking together ever since he had dismounted.  “Slide over this way a li’l more, Rack.  Now take off yore spurs.”

Racey stooped and removed his own.  And not for an instant did he lose the magic of the drop.  As a matter of fact, he had kept Rack covered from the moment Rack set his boot-soles to earth.  Rack’s spurs jingled on the ground.  Racey let them lie.  His own spurs he jammed each into a hip pocket.

“I’ll have to be careful how I sit down now,” he remarked, jocularly, to Rack Slimson.  “You ready?  Aw right.  You know the way to the Starlight’s back door.”

The back door of the saloon was wide open.  They entered on tiptoe, the proprietor in the lead.

“Remember,” whispered Racey, when he discovered the back room to be empty, “remember, I’m right behind you.  Keep on yore toes.”

He held Rack Slimson by the belt and pushed him toward the door giving into the front room.  This door was shut.  They paused behind it.

“He oughta be along pretty soon,” complained a fretful voice that Racey recognized as belonging to Honey Hoke.

“We don’t mind waiting,” chimed in Punch-the-breeze Thompson.

“It’s the best thing we do.”  This was big Doc Coffin speaking.

The two behind the door heard a bottle-neck clink against the rim of a glass.

“You better not take too much,” advised Thompson.

“Aw, who’s takin’ too much?” flung back Honey Hoke.

“Well, you don’t see the rest of us touching a single drop, do you?  Speaking personal, I wouldn’t drown my insides with liquor when I’m due to go up against a proposition like Racey Dawson.”

Here was praise indeed.  Racey thumbed Rack Slimson in the ribs.  Rack turned his head and saw that Racey was grinning.  Rack grew even more spineless.

“You see,” pointed out Racey in a sardonic whisper.  “Yo’re up against the pure quill, feller.”

Which remark at any other time would have been in the worst possible taste, but license is extended to men in peril of their lives.

“They’re at the table in the corner beside the bar, this end, ain’t they?” resumed Racey.  “Ain’t it lucky the door opens that way?”

Then he was silent for a time while he strove to catch the accents of Peaches Austin.  He wanted to know if they were all four at the one table.  But Peaches was either not talking or elsewhere.  A moment later the question was answered for him by Honey Hoke.

“If he slips by Peaches without Peaches seem’ him—­” began Honey.

“Aw, hownell can he?” sneered Doc Coffin.  “They’s Peaches camped down in front of the blacksmith shop right where he can see the trail alla way down Injun Ridge.  A dog couldn’t get past Peaches without being seen, let alone a two-legged man on a four-legged hoss.”