the horse. Then you went up to a high point a hundred yards this side and watched for the stage and Mac went on down to the bend and was ready when you signaled it was coming. He stuck it up and hit for the high ground and the barren rocks and then came down into the main road. You broke for the main road after the stage left in such a hurry that you even lost your watch charm. Here it is!”

Shaughnessy could not suppress either his astonishment or his anger. He bent far forward, glared at the bauble in his tormentor’s hands and muttered almost inaudibly, “So you’ve got it, eh? No wonder I couldn’t find it! Looked everywhere⸺”

David slipped the charm back into his pocket and with a grin went on, “Here’s the butt of one of the cigars you smoke, and the band that came off it!” Again he made an exhibit. “But that isn’t all. Here are two patterns of your shoes made from your footprints and—why, man! You’ve got the shoes on now with the plate on the right heel; put there because your right leg is a little game due to getting a shot near the knee before we ran you and your gang out of Sky Gap.”

Shaughnessy who had been sitting aghast suddenly shifted his right foot backward as if to conceal his shoe, and David grinned as he had proof that his surmise had proven true.

“Why, I’ve even got a sheet of paper taken out of your office which is of the same kind, watermark and all, that the anonymous letter was written on, and it’s the same kind you used when you wrote Ray that nice friendly letter renewing your offer of a thousand dollars for his claim. Also, Shaughnessy, I’ve got some similar goods to pull about MacPharlane which don’t need to concern you unless I have to put it all in the hands of the county attorney, together, as I said before, with two prisoners, alive—or dead. Now, do we deal?”

For a long time Shaughnessy sat, discomfited, changing color, shifting his eyes, and now and then lifting them up to stare with unveiled hatred at the little man who sat silently observant across his desk.

“Damn you!” he growled at last, with an air of resignation, “you and that big pardner of yours are always butting in on my game and—and you’ll do it once too often. I’ll tell you that. But, I’ll say this!” He paused and then with reluctant admiration added, “You never make a play that you aren’t ready to raise to the limit and—I’ll admit this—you seem to know how to make your bluffs good!” He pondered heavily for a full minute more and then with a sigh asked, “If I agree to this, and pay over the seventy-five hundred for that claim, does that clean the slate 

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