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298 Andrew sat up. His weapons had been indeed removed, and the marshal was looking at him with beady eyes.

"Have you seen 'em?" asked Andrew. "Have the boys shown themselves?"

He started to get up, but the marshal's crisp voice cut in on him. "Sit down there."

There had been—was it possible to believe it?—a motion of the gun in the hands of the marshal to point this last remark.

"Partner," said Andrew, stunned, "what are you drivin' at?"

"I've been thinking," said Hal Dozier. "You sit tight till I tell you what about."

"It's just driftin' into my head, sort of misty," murmured Andrew, "that you've been thinkin' about double crossin' me."

"Suppose," said the marshal, "I was to ride into Martindale with you in front of me. That'd make a pretty good picture, Andy. Allister dead, and you taken alive. Not to speak of ten thousand dollars as a background. That would sort of round off my work. I could retire and live happy ever after, eh?"

Andrew peered into the grim face of the older man; there was not a flicker of a smile in it.

"Go on," he said, "but think twice, Hal. If I was you, I'd think ten times!"

The marshal met those terrible, blazing eyes without a quiver of his own.

"I began with thinking about that picture," he said. "Later on I had some other thoughts—about you. Andy, d'you see that you don't fit around here? You're neither a man-killer nor a law-abidin' citizen. You wouldn't fit in Martindale any more, and you certainly won't fit with any gang of crooks that ever wore guns. Look at the