Barney backed after them, his automatic still held in readiness.  “I’m letting you down damned easy, Brainard,” he said, hate glittering in his eyes.  “But there’s some who won’t be so nice!”

With that he closed the door.  Until that moment both Hunt and the Duchess had said nothing.  Now the Duchess spoke up: 

“I’m glad they’ve taken Maggie away, Larry.  I’ve seen the way you’ve come to feel about her, and she’s not the right sort for you.”

But Larry was still too dazed by the way in which Maggie had walked out of his life to make any response.

“But there’s a lot in what Barney said about there being some who wouldn’t be easy on you,” continued the Duchess.  “That word had been brought me before Barney showed up.  So I had this ready for you.”

From a slit pocket in her baggy skirt the Duchess drew out a pistol and handed it to Larry.

“What’s this for?” Larry asked.

“I was told that word had gone out to the Ginger Buck Gang to get you,” answered the Duchess.  “Barney has some secret connection with the Ginger Bucks.  His saying that you were a stool and a squealer is not the only thing he’s got against you; he’s jealous of you on account of everything—­especially Maggie.  So you’ll need that gun.”

“What’s this I’ve fallen into the middle of?” exclaimed Hunt.  “A Kentucky feud?”

“It’s very easy to understand when you know the code,” Larry explained grimly.  “Down here when an outfit thinks one of its members has squealed on them, it’s their duty to be always on the watch for their chance to finish him off.  I’m to be finished off—­that’s all.”

“Say, young fellow, the life of a straight crook doesn’t seem to be getting much simpler!  Why, man, you hardly dare to stir from the house!  What are you going to do?”

“Going to go around my business, always with the pleasant anticipation of a bullet in my back when some fellow thinks it safe for him to shoot.”

The three of them discussed this latest development over their dinner, which they had together up in Hunt’s studio.  But despite all their talk of his danger, a very real and near danger, Larry’s mind was more upon Maggie who had thus suddenly been wrenched out of his life.  He remembered her excited, boastful talk of their first evening.  Her period of schooling was indeed now over; she was now committed to her rosily imagined adventure, in which she saw herself as a splendid lady.  And with Barney Palmer as her guiding influence! . . .

Dinner had been finished and Hunt was trying to give Larry such cheer as “Buck up, young fellow—­you know the worst—­there’s nothing else that can happen,” when the lie direct was given to his phrases by heavy steps running up the stairway and the opening and closing of the door.  There stood Officer Casey, heaving for breath.

Instinctively Larry drew his pistol.  “Casey!  What’re you here for?”