“To hell with some other woman!” flared the Texan.  “I tell you I’ll have that girl or I’ll never look at another woman.  There ain’t another woman in the world can touch her.  You think you’re wise as hell, but I’ll show you!”

The half-breed regarded him gloomily:  “A’m tink dat ’oman de pilgrim ’oman.”

“Oh, you do, do you?  Well, just you listen to me.  She ain’t—­not yet.  It’s me an’ the pilgrim for her.  If she ties to him instead of me, it’s all right.  She’ll get a damn good man.  Take me, an’ all of a sudden throw me into the middle of his country, an’ I doubt like hell if I’d show up as good as he did in mine.  Whatever play goes on between me an’ the pilgrim, will be on the square—­with one deck, an’ the cards on the table.  There’s only one thing I’m holdin’ out on him, an’ that is about Purdy.  An’ that ain’t an onfair advantage, because it’s his own fault he’s worryin’ about it.  An’ if it gives me a better chance with her, I’m goin’ to grab it.  An’ I’ll win, too.  But, if I don’t win, I don’t reckon it’ll kill me.  Sometimes when I get to thinkin’ about it I almost wish it would—­I’m that damned close to bein’ yellow.”

Bat laughed.  The idea of the Texan being yellow struck him as humorous.  “I’m wonder how mooch more beeg lie you got for tell, eh?”

Tex was grinning now, “Search me.  I had to concoct some excuse for getting ’em started—­two or three excuses.  An’ it looks like I got to keep on concoctin’ ’em to keep ’em goin’.  But it don’t hurt no one—­lyin’ like that, don’t.  It don’t hurt the girl, because she’s bound to get one of us.  It don’t hurt the pilgrim, because we’ll see him through to the railroad.  It don’t hurt you, because you don’t believe none of it.  An’ it don’t hurt me, because I’m used to it—­an’ there you are.  But that don’t give you no license to set around an’ snort an’ gargle while I’m tellin’ ’em.  I got trouble enough keepin’ ‘em plausible an’ entangled, without you keepin’ me settin’ on a cactus for fear you’ll give it away.  What you got to do is to back up my play—­remember them four bits I give you way back in Los Vegas?  Well, here’s where I’m givin’ you a chance to pay dividends on them four bits.”

Bat grinned:  “You go ‘head an’ mak’ you play.  You fin’ out I ain’t forgit dat four bit.  She ain’ mooch money—­four bit ain’.  But w’en she all you got, she wan hell of a lot . . . bien!”

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE BAD LANDS

It was well toward noon on the following day when the four finally succeeded in locating the grub cache of the departed horse-thief.  Nearly two years had passed since the man had described the place to Tex and a two-year-old description of a certain small, carefully concealed cavern in a rock-wall pitted with innumerable similar caverns is a mighty slender peg to hang hopes upon.

“It’s like searching for buried treasure!” exclaimed Alice as she pried and prodded among the rocks with a stout stick.