“Shoot me up and then bring me back to life, eh?”

“Mr. Donnegan,” said the other, spreading out his hands solemnly on the table, “you ain’t doin’ us justice.  We don’t hanker none for trouble with you.  Any way it comes, a fight with you means somebody dead besides you.  We’d get you.  Four to one is too much for any man.  But one or two of us might go down.  Who would it be?  Maybe the Pedlar, maybe Harry Masters, maybe Lester, maybe me!  Oh, we know all that.  No gunplay if we can keep away from it.”

“You’ve left out the name of Lord Nick,” said Donnegan.

Joe Rix winked.

“Seems like you tended to him once and for all when you got him alone in this cabin.  Must have thrown a mighty big scare into him.  He won’t lift a hand agin’ you now.”

“No?” murmured Donnegan hoarsely.

“Not him!  But that leaves four of us, and four is plenty, eh?”

“Perhaps.”

“But I’m not here to insist on that point.  No, we put a value on keepin’ up good feeling between us and you, Mr. Donnegan.  We ain’t fools.  We know a man when we see him—­and the fastest gunman that ever slid a gun out of leather ain’t the sort of a man that me and the rest of the boys pass over lightly.  Not us!  We know you, Mr. Donnegan; we respect you; we want you with us; we’re going to have you with us.”

“You flatter me and I thank you.  But I’m glad to see that you are at last coming to the point.”

“I am, and the point is five thousand dollars that’s tied behind the hoss that stands outside your door.”

He pushed his fat hand a little way across the table, as though the gold even then were resting in it, a yellow tide of fortune.

“For which,” said Donnegan, “I’m to step aside and let you at the colonel?”

“Right.”

Donnegan smiled.

“Wait,” said Joe Rix.  “I was makin’ a first offer to see how you stood, but you’re right.  Five thousand ain’t enough and we ain’t cheapskates.  Not us.  Mr. Donnegan, they’s ten thousand cold iron men behind that saddle out there and every cent of it belongs to you when you come over on our side.”

But Donnegan merely dropped his chin upon his hand and smiled mirthlessly at Joe Rix.  A wild thought came to the other man.  Both of Donnegan’s hands were far from his weapons.  Why not a quick draw, a snap shot, and then the glory of having killed this manslayer in single battle for Joe Rix?

The thought rushed red across his brain and then faded slowly.  Something kept him back.  Perhaps it was the singular calm of Donnegan; no matter how quiet he sat he suggested the sleeping cat which can leap out of dead sleep into fighting action at a touch.  By the time a second thought had come to Joe Rix the idea of an attack was like an idea of suicide.

“Is that final?” he asked, though Donnegan had not said a word.

“It is.”

Joe Rix stood up.