He drew Holt out into the hall, where Pepper waited.  Some one slammed the door and began to curse.

“That ends that,” said Colonel Pepper, as the three moved down the dim hall.

“It ends us, Pepper, but you couldn’t stop those guys with a crowbar,” retorted Dalrymple.

Lane linked arms with the boy and changed the conversation while they walked back to the inn.  Here Colonel Pepper left them, and Lane talked to Holt for an hour.  The more he questioned Holt the better he liked him, and yet the more surprised was he at the sordid fact of the boy’s inclination toward loose living.  There was something perhaps that Holt would not confess.  His health had been impaired in the rich coloring, but his face wore a shade of sullen depression.  The other two young men Lane had seen in Middleville, but they were unknown to him.

“Pepper, you beat it with your new pard,” snarled Swann.  “And you’ll not get in here again, take that from me.”

The mandate nettled Pepper, who evidently felt more deeply over this situation than had appeared on the surface.

“Sure, I’ll beat it,” returned he, resentfully.  “But see here, Swann.  Be careful how you shoot off your dirty mouth.  It’s not beyond me to hand a little tip to my friend Chief of Police Bell.”

“You damned squealer!” shouted Swann.  “Go ahead—­do your worst.  You’ll find I pull a stroke....  Now get out of here.”

With a violent action he shoved the little man out into the hall.  Then turning to Lane he pointed with shaking hand to the door.

“Lane, you couldn’t be a guest of mine.”

“Swann, I certainly wouldn’t be,” retorted Lane, in tones that rang.  “Pepper didn’t tell me you were the proprietor of this—­this joint.”

“Get out of here or I’ll throw you out!” yelled Swann, now beside himself with rage.  And he made a threatening move toward Lane.

“Don’t lay a hand on me,” replied Lane.  “I don’t want my uniform soiled.”

With that Lane turned to Dalrymple, and said quietly:  “Holt, I came here to find you, not to play cards.  That was a stall.  Come away with me.  You were not cut out for a card sharp or a booze fighter.  What’s got into you that you can gamble and drink’ with slackers?”

Dalrymple jammed his hat on and stepped toward the door.  “Dare, you said a lot.  I’ll beat it with you—­and I’ll never come back.”

“You bet your sweet life you won’t,” shouted Swann.

“Hold on there, Dalrymple,” interposed Mackay, stepping out.  “Come across with that eighty-six bucks you owe me.”

“I—­I haven’t got it, Mackay,” rejoined the boy, flushing deeply.

Lane ripped open his coat and jerked out his pocket-book and tore bills out of it.  “There, Hardy Mackay,” he said, with deliberate scorn, throwing the money on the table.  “There are your eighty-six dollars—­earned in France....  I should think it’d burn your fingers.”