The action was quite irresistible and Standing nodded.

“Sure,” he said smilingly, and picked up the matchbox lying on his table.

He struck a match and held it while the other obtained the required light.  Then he passed round the desk to the seat he had originally occupied.

Idepski leant back in his chair, and luxuriated in a deep inhalation of smoke.  Bat watched him from his place at the window.  Standing placed the revolver and sheath knife he had taken possession of in a drawer in the desk, and closed it carefully.

“Well, what’s the play?” Idepski addressed himself solely to Standing.  “I guess you’ve said a deal calculated to rile, and your pardner’s done more,” he went on.  “Still—­anyway we’re mostly men and not school-kids.  What’s the play?”

Standing, too, was leaning back in his chair.

“It’s easy,” he said, after a moment’s thoughtful regard.  Suddenly he drew his chair up to the table, and, leaning forward, folded his arms upon the littered blotting pad in front of him.  “It’s seven years since Hellbeam—­blazed the war trail,” he said deliberately.  “I know he’s persistent.  He’s angry.  And he’s the sort of man who doesn’t cool down easily.  But it’s taken him seven years to locate me here.  And during all that time I’ve been looking on, watching his every move.”  He shook his head.  “He’s badly served, for all his wealth.  He was badly served from the start.  You should never have let me beat you in that first race across the border.  I got away with every cent of the stuff, and—­you shouldn’t have let me.  You certainly were at fault.  However, it doesn’t matter.”

Idepski removed his cigarette from his lips and dropped the ash of it in the waste basket.

“No.  It doesn’t matter, because I’ll get you—­in the end,” he retorted coldly.

“Perhaps.”

Standing shrugged.  But there was no indifference in his eyes.  The acid sharpness of Idepski’s retort had driven straight home.  If the agent failed to detect it, the watchful eyes of Bat missed nothing.  To him the danger signal lay in the curious flicker of his friend’s eyelids.  The sight impelled him.  He jumped in and took up the challenge in the blunt fashion he best understood.

“Guess you’ve got nightmare, boy,” he said, with a sneering laugh.  “I ain’t much at figgers, but it seems to me if it’s taken you seven years to locate us here, it’s going to take you seventy-seven gettin’ Standing back across that border.  Work it out.”

Idepski had no intention of being drawn.  He replied without turning.

“You think that?” he said easily.  “Say, don’t worry a thing; I’m satisfied.  Just as sure as the sun’ll rise to-morrow, Hellbeam’ll get Leslie Martin, or Standing as he chooses to call himself now, just where he needs him.  And if I know Hellbeam that’ll be in the worst penitentiary the United States can produce.  Guess you’re going to wish you hadn’t, Mister—­Standing.”