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 if you run agin him," advised the bar-tender. "You kin grab him and take his gun away likely." "I don't think he'll do anything at all," said Bailey. At one o'clock he had dinner at the hotel. A dozen men offered him advice, which he received civilly. Cool as he was, and he was cool and obstinate, the steady insistence of the town that Crowle would kill him told a little on his nerves. He was rather glad than otherwise that he had to go to Big Springs that night. And it is certain that he was glad when night came, and he walked down to the railroad depôt in the dark.

It was curious how dark it was.

"Another thunderstorm, I suppose," said Bailey. But he hadn't been long in north-west Texas, and had not yet learnt that obvious looking thunder-weather rarely brought a storm. He ran in the darkness right up against a man.

"Is that you, Mr. Bailey?" asked a voice that belonged, as he knew, to Mat Dunmore, a man who ran cattle on the cars from Painted Rock to Chicago and St. Louis.