Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/184

 Original stepped close to him and gave him the answer fairly between the eyes:

"That the people who hire you and hire me have been paying for little stones on dead men's foreheads."

The lawyer's face went white with rage. His wide mouth opened and shut like a landed mullet's in an effort to frame phrases for his wrath. Finally:

"Who has bought you, Blunt? Who has reached you with money to turn traitor to your people and accuse them of being hirers of murder?"

Original's voice dropped very low; several men who once ranged the Big Country had learned to their sorrow that when he purred thus his gun hand was about to leap:

"Mr. Von Tromp, my price is so high there's no lawyer walking in tanned leather yet raised it. You 're lookin' white, Mr. Von Tromp—sorta fish-bellied. The air in this room 's kind of close—for two."

Von Tromp read the meaning in the other's concluding words without ambiguity. He took his hat from the door knob and tramped downstairs to the street. Original, absently twiddling tobacco in paper between the fingers of