“Not till we finish.”  The lumberman settled in his chair.  “That was the way you got me before—­and you ain’t goin’ to come it again.”

McCoppet waited for his visitor to open.  Trimmer was not in a hurry.  He eyed the man across the table calmly, his small, shifting optics dully gleaming.

Presently he said; “Cayuse is here in camp.”

Cayuse was the half-breed Piute Indian whose company McCoppet had avoided.  Partially educated, wholly reverted to his Indian ways and tribal brethren, Cayuse was a singular mixture of the savage, plus civilized outlooks and ethical standards that made him a dangerous man—­not only a law unto himself, as many Indians are, but also a strange interpreter of the law, both civilized and aboriginal.

McCoppet had surmised what was coming.

“Yes—­I noticed he was here.”

“Know what he come fer?” asked the lumberman.  “Onto his game?”

“You came here to tell me.  Deal the cards.”

Trimmer puffed great lungfuls of the reek from his weed and took his revolver in hand.

“Opal,” said he, enjoying his moment of vantage, “you done me up for a clean one thousand bucks, a year ago—­while I was drunk—­and I’ve been laying to git you ever since.”

McCoppet was unmoved.

“Well, here I am.”

“You bet! here you are—­and here you’re goin’ to hang out till we fix things right!” The lumberman banged his gun barrel on the table hard enough to make a dent.  “That’s why Cayuse is here, too.  Mrs. Cayuse is dead.”

The gambler nodded coldly, and Trimmer went on.

“She kicked the bucket havin’ a kid which wasn’t Cayuse’s—­too darn white fer even him—­and Cayuse is on the war trail fer that father.”

McCoppet threw away his chewed cigar and replaced it with a fresh one.  He nodded as before.

“Cayuse is on that I know who the father was,” resumed the visitor.  “I told him to come here to Goldite and I’d give up the name.”

He began to consume his cigar once more by inches and watched the effect of his words.  There was no visible effect.  McCoppet had never been calmer in his life—­outwardly.  Inwardly he had never felt Dearer to death, and his own kind of fright was upon him.

“Well,” he said, “your aces look good to me.  What do you want—­how much?”

“I ought to hand you over to Cayuse—­good riddance to the whole country,” answered Trimmer, with rare perspicacity of judgment.  “You bet you’re goin’ to pay.”

“If you want your thousand back, why don’t you say so?” inquired the gambler quietly.  “I’ll make it fifteen hundred.  That’s pretty good interest, I reckon.”

“Your reckoner’s run down,” Trimmer assured him.  “I want ten thousand dollars to steer Cayuse away.”

McCoppet slowly shook his head.  “You ain’t a hog, Larry, you’re a Rockyfeller.  Five thousand, cash on the nail, if you show me you can steer Cayuse so far off the trail he’ll never get on it again.”