“About that there chloral.  I’ll slip over an’ git it from Doc.  An’ say, I’m doin’ the right thing by yeh.  I could horn yeh fer a chunk o’ that reward money, but I won’t do a friend that way.  An’ more’n that,” he paused and leaned closer.  “I’ll let you in on somethin’ worth while one of these days.  That there thousan’ that ol’ Lazy Y paid Doc hain’t a patchin’ to what he’s goin’ to fork over to me.  See?”

Cinnabar Joe nodded, slowly, as he mouthed his dead cigar, and when he spoke it was more to himself than to Purdy.  “I’ve played a square game ever since that time back on the edge of the desert.  I don’t want to have to do time fer that.  It wouldn’t be a square deal nohow, I was only a Kid then an’ never got a cent of the money.  Then, there’s Jennie over to the hotel.  We’d about decided that bartendin’ an’ hash-slingin’ wasn’t gittin’ us nowheres an’ we was goin’ to hitch up an’ turn nesters on a little yak outfit I’ve bought over on Eagle.”  He stopped abruptly and looked the cowpuncher squarely in the eye.  “If it wasn’t fer her, by God!  I’d tell you jest as I did before, to git to hell out of here an’ do your damnedest.  But it would bust her all up if I had to do time fer a hold-up.  You’ve got me where you want me, I guess.  But I don’t want in on no dirty money from old Lazy Y, nor no one else.  You go it alone—­it’s your kind of a job.

“This here chloride, or whatever you call it, you sure it won’t kill a man?”

Purdy laughed:  “Course it won’t.  It’ll only put him to sleep till I’ve had a chanct to win out.  I’ll git the stuff from Doc an’ find out how much is a dost, an’ you kin’ slip it in his booze.”

As the cowpuncher disappeared through the door, Cinnabar Joe’s eyes narrowed.  “You damn skunk!” he muttered, biting viciously upon the stump of his cigar.  “If you was drinkin’ anything I’d switch glasses on you, an’ then shoot it out with you when you come to.  From now on it’s you or me.  You’ve got your hooks into me an’ this is only the beginnin’.”  The man stopped abruptly and stared for a long time at the stove-pipe hole in the opposite wall.  Then, turning, he studied his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles and glasses.  He tossed away his cigar, straightened his necktie, and surveyed himself from a new angle.

“This here Tex, now,” he mused.  “He sure is a rantankerous cuss when he’s lickered up.  He’d jest as soon ride his horse through that door as he would to walk through, an’ he’s always puttin’ somethin’ over on someone.  But he’s a man.  He’d go through hell an’ high water fer a friend.  He was the only one of the whole outfit had the guts to tend Jimmy Trimble when he got the spotted fever—­nursed him back to good as ever, too, after the Doc had him billed through fer yonder.”  Cinnabar Joe turned and brought his fist down on the bar.  “I’ll do it!” he gritted.  “Purdy’ll think Tex switched the drinks on me.  Only I hope he wasn’t lyin’ about that there stuff.  Anyways, even if he was, it’s one of them things a man’s got to do.  An’ I’ll rest a whole lot easier in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye first.”  Unconsciously, the man began to croon the dismal wail of the plains: