“Offer number one,” said Norton, manifesting neither surprise nor interest even.  “Twenty thousand dollars to pull my freight.  Well, Jim Galloway, you must have something on the line that pulls like a big fish.  Now, let’s have the other barrel.”

“I have suggested that you clean out; the other suggestion is that, if you won’t get out of my way, you get busy on your job.  Vidal Nunez will be at the Casa Blanca to-night.  I have sent word for him to come in and that I’d look out for him.  Come, get him.  Which will you take, Rod Norton?  Twenty thousand iron men or your chances at the Casa Blanca?”

It was Norton’s turn to grow thoughtful.  Galloway was rolling a cigarette.  The sheriff reached for his own tobacco and papers.  Only when he had set a match to the brown cylinder and drawn the first of the smoke did he answer.

“You’ve said it all now, have you?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Galloway.  “It’s up to you this time.  What’s the word?”

Norton laughed.

“When I decide what I am going to do I always do it,” he said lightly.  “And as a rule I don’t do a lot of talking about it beforehand.  I’ll leave you to guess the answer, Galloway.”

Galloway shrugged and swung his horse back into the trail.

“So long,” he said colorlessly.

“So long,” Norton returned.

CHAPTER XI

THE FIGHT AT LA CASA BLANCA

It was something after six o’clock when Jim Galloway rode into San Juan.  Leaving his sweat-wet horse in his own stable at the rear of the Casa Blanca he passed through the patio and into a little room whose door he unlocked with a key from his pocket.  For ten minutes he sat before a typewriting machine, one big forefinger slowly picking out the letters of a brief note.  The address, also typed, bore the name of a town below the border.  Without signing his communication he sealed it into its envelope and, relocking the door as he went out, walked thoughtfully down the street to the post-office.

As he passed Struve’s hotel he lifted his hat; upon the veranda at the cooler, shaded end, Virginia was entertaining Florence Engle.  Florrie nodded brightly to Galloway, turning quickly to Virginia as the big man went on.

“Do you actually believe, Virginia dear,” she whispered, “that that man is as wicked as they say he is?  Did you watch him going by?  Did you see the way he took off his hat?  Did you ever know a man to smile quite as he does?”

“I don’t believe,” returned Virginia, “that I ever had him smile at me, Florrie.”

“His eyes are not bad eyes, are they?” Florrie ran on.  “Oh, I know what papa thinks and what Rod thinks about him; but I just don’t believe it!  How could a man be the sort they say he is and still be as pleasant and agreeable and downright good-looking as Mr. Galloway?  Why,” and she achieved a quick little shudder, “if I had done all the terrible deeds they accuse him of I’d go around looking as black as a cloud all the time, savage and glum and remembering every minute how wicked I was.”