The Spider felt tempted to resort to bribery, but there was something so officious and aggressively professional in the manner of this “straw-boss”—­as The Spider mentally labeled him—­that The Spider hesitated to flatter his egotism by admitting that he held the whip-hand.

“Then mebby you can find out how he’s getting along?” queried The Spider, in his high-pitched voice.

“No objection to that,” said the young doctor, reaching for the desk ’phone.  “Two-eighteen, please.  Two-eighteen?  How is your patient to-night?  That so?  H-m-m!  Oh, this is Miss Gray talking?  H-m-m!  Thanks.”  And he hung up the receiver.

“The patient is doing very well—­exceptionally well.  Would you care to leave any message?”

“You might tell Doc Andover to leave word that when I call, I get to see the folks I come to see—­and I reckon he’ll set you straight.”

“Oh, I didn’t—­er—­know you were a friend of Dr. Andover’s.  What is the name, please?”

“’T wouldn’t interest you none, little man.  Thanks for the information.”  And The Spider hobbled out and clumped stiffly down the wide stone stairway.

The young doctor adjusted his glasses and stared into vacancy.  “H-m-m!  And he had the nerve to call me ‘little man.’  Now I should call him a decidedly suspicious character.  Looks something like an overgrown spider.  Birds of a feather,” he added sententiously, with an air of conscious rectitude, and a disregard for the propriety of the implied metaphor.  It is not quite certain whether he had Andover or Pete in mind.  But it is most probable that had he allowed The Spider to see Pete that evening and talk with him, The Spider would have left El Paso the next day, as he had planned, instead of waiting until the following evening, against his own judgment and in direct opposition to that peculiar mental reaction called “a hunch” by those not familiar with the niceties of the English language, and called nothing really more expressive by those who are.

So far as The Spider knew, he had not been recognized by any one.  Yet with that peculiar intuition of the gunman and killer he knew that he was marked.  He wondered which of his old enemies had found him out—­and when and how that enemy would strike.

That night he wrote a short letter to Pete, stating that he was in town and would call to see him the following evening, adding that if he failed to call Pete was to go to the Stockmen’s Security and ask for the president when he was able to be about.  He mailed the letter himself, walking several blocks to find a box.  On his way back a man passed him who peered at him curiously.  The Spider’s hand had crept toward his upper vest-pocket as the other approached.  After he passed, The Spider drew out a fresh cigar and lighted it from the one he was smoking.  And he tossed the butt away and turned and glanced back.  “I wonder what White-Eye is doing in El Paso?” he asked