“Which might be takin’ a chance, both ways.”

“Say”—­and Pete smiled—­“I guess I been talkin’ pretty fast, I was some het up.  The Spider used me as white as he could use anybody, I reckon.  But ever since that killin’ up to his place, I been sore at the whole doggone outfit runnin’ this here world.  What does a fella git, anyhow, for stickin’ up for himself, if he runs against a killer?  He gits bumped off—­or mebby he kills the other fella and gits run out of the country or hung.  Pardners stick, don’t they?  Well, how would it git you if you had a pardner that—­well, mebby was a girl and she got killed by a bunch of deputies jest because she was quick enough to spoil their game?  Would you feel like shakin’ hands with every doggone hombre you met up with, or like tellin’ him to go to hell and sendin’ him there if he was lookin to argue with you?  I dunno.  Mebby I’m wrong—­from the start—­but I figure all a fella gits out of this game is a throwdown, comin’ or goin’—­’for the deck is stacked and the wheel is crooked.”

“I was fifty-six last February,” said Brent.

“And how many notches you got on your gun?” queried Pete.

“Oh, mebby two, three,” drawled the foreman.

“That’s it!  Say you started in callin’ yourself a growed man when you was twenty.  Every ten years you had to hand some fella his finish to keep from makin’ yours.  ‘Got to kill to live,’ is right!”

“Son, you got a good horse, and yonder is the whole State of Texas, where a man can sure lose himself without tryin’ hard.  There’s plenty of work down there for a good cow-hand.  And a man’s name ain’t printed on his face.  Nobody’s got a rope on you.”

“I git you,” said Pete.  “But I throwed in with The Spider—­and that goes.”

“That’s your business—­and as you was sayin’ your business ain’t mine.  But throwin’ a fast gun won’t do you no good round here.”

“Oh, I don’t claim to be so doggone fast,” stated Pete.

“Faster than Steve Gary?”

Pete’s easy glance centered to a curious, tense gaze which was fixed on the third button of Brent’s shirt.  “What about Steve Gary?” asked Pete, and even Brent, old hand as he was, felt the sinister significance in that slow question.  The Spider’s letter had said to “give him a try-out,” which might have meant almost anything to a casual reader, but to Brent it meant just what he had been doing that evening—­seeking for a weak spot in Pete’s make-up, if there were such, before hiring him.

“My gun is in the bedroom,” said Brent easily.

“Well, Gary’s wasn’t,” said Pete.