“All right,” agreed Tally pacifically; “but let’s go across the river to Dugan’s and get it.”

To this Darrell readily agreed.  They left the saloon.  Bob, following, noticed the peculiar truculence imparted to Darrell’s appearance by the fact that in walking he always held his hands open and palms to the front.  Suddenly Darrell became for the first time aware of his presence.  The riverman whirled on him, and Bob became conscious of something as distinct as a physical shock as he met the impact of an electrical nervous energy.  It passed, and he found himself half smiling down on this little, white-faced man with the matted hair and the bloodshot, chipmunk eyes.

“Who’n hell’s this!” demanded Darrell savagely.

“Friend of mine,” said Tally.  “Come on.”

Darrell stared a moment longer.  “All right,” he said at last.

All the way across the bridge Tally argued with his companion.

“We’ve got to have a foreman on the Cedar Branch, Dick,” he began, “and you’re the fellow.”

To this Darrell offered a profane, emphatic and contemptuous negative.  With consummate diplomacy Tally led his mind from sullen obstinacy to mere reluctance.  At the corner of Main Street the three stopped.

“But I don’t want to go yet, Jim,” pleaded Darrell, almost tearfully.  “I ain’t had all my ‘time’ yet.”

“Well,” said Tally, “you’ve been polishing up the flames of hell for four days pretty steady.  What more do you want?”

“I ain’t smashed no rig yet,” objected Darrell.

Tally looked puzzled.

“Well, go ahead and smash your rig and get done with it,” he said.

“A’ right,” said Darrell cheerfully.

He started off briskly, the others following.  Down a side street his rather uncertain gait led them, to the wide-open door of a frame livery stable.  The usual loungers in the usual tipped-back chairs greeted him.

“Want m’ rig,” he demanded.

A large and leisurely man in shirt sleeves lounged out from the office and looked him over dispassionately.

“You’ve been drunk four days,” said he, “have you the price?”

“Bet y’,” said Dick, cheerfully.  He seated himself on the ground and pulled off his boot from which he extracted a pulpy mass of greenbacks.  “Can’t fool me!” he said cunningly.  “Always save ’nuff for my rig!”

He shoved the bills into the liveryman’s hands.  The latter straightened them out, counted them, thrust a portion into his pocket, and handed the rest back to Darrell.

“There you are,” said he.  He shouted an order into the darkness of the stable.

An interval ensued.  The stableman and Tally waited imperturbably, without the faintest expression of interest in anything evident on their immobile countenances.  Dicky Darrell rocked back and forth on his heels, a pleased smile on his face.

After a few moments the stable boy led out a horse hitched to the most ramshackle and patched-up old side-bar buggy Bob had ever beheld.  Darrell, after several vain attempts, managed to clamber aboard.  He gathered up the reins, and, with exaggerated care, drove into the middle of the street.