At the same moment the bundle shot to a sitting position, with a cry: 

“Who’s that?”

Frawley, with a quick motion, covered him with his revolver, crying: 

“Hands up.  It’s me, Bucky, and I’ve got you now!”

“Frawley!”

“That’s it, Bucky—­Hands up!”

Greenfield, without obeying, stared at him wildly.

“God, it is Frawley!” he cried, and fell back in a heap.

Inspector Frawley, advancing a step, repeated his command with no uncertain ring: 

“Hands up!  Quick!”

On the bed the distorted body contracted suddenly into a ball.

“Easy, Bub,” Greenfield said between his teeth.  “Easy; don’t get excited.  I’m dying.”

“You?”

Frawley approached cautiously, suspiciously.

“Fact.  I’m cashin’ in.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Bug.  Plain bug—­the desert did the rest.”

“A what?”

“Tarantula bite—­don’t laugh, Bub.”

Frawley, at his side, needed but a glance to see that it was true.  He ran his hand over Greenfield’s belt and removed his pistol.

“Sorry,” he said curtly, standing up.

“Quite keerect, Bub!”

“Can I do anything for you?”

“Nope.”

Suddenly, without warning, Greenfield raised himself, glared at him, stretched out his hands, and fell into a passionate fit of weeping.  Frawley’s English reserve was outraged.

“What’s the matter?” he said angrily.  “You’re not going to show the white feather now, are you?”

With an oath Greenfield sat bolt upright, silent and flustered.

“D——­ you, Bub—­show some imagination,” he said after a pause.  “Do you think I mind dying—­me?  That’s a good one.  It ain’t that—­no—­it’s ending, ending like this.  After all I’ve been through, to be put out of business by a bug—­an ornery little bug.”

Then Frawley comprehended his mistake.

“I say, Bucky, I’ll take that back,” he said awkwardly.

“No imagination, no imagination,” Greenfield muttered, sinking back.  “Why, man, if I’d chased you three times around the world and got you, I’d fall on you and beat you to a pulp or—­or I’d hug you like a long-lost brother.”

“I asked your pardon,” said Frawley again.

“All right, Bub—­all right,” Greenfield answered with a short laugh.  Then after a pause he added seriously:  “So you’ve come—­well, I’m glad it’s over.  Bub,” he continued, raising himself excitedly on his elbow, “here’s something strange, only you won’t understand it.  Do you know, the whole time I knew just where you were—­I had a feeling somewhere in the back of my neck.  At first you were ’way off, over the horizon; then you got to be a spot coming over the hill.  Then I began to feel that spot growin’ bigger and bigger—­after Rio Janeiro, crawling up, creeping up.  Gospel truth, I felt you sneaking up on my back.  It got on my nerves.  I dreamed about it, and that morning on the trail when you was just a speck on any old hoss—­I knew!  You—­you don’t understand such things, Bub, do you?”