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 at length, as Peck began to put money down on the table beside a folded piece of paper he had taken from the greasy leather wallet that never could have been his own.

Up came Peck's gun, which he steadied in his peculiar fashion with both hands, the left clasping the wrist of the right.

"I mean you're goin' to hit the breeze out of here," Peck announced, trying to look mean, succeeding fairly well. "There's five hundred dollars, and there's a bill of sale for you to sign. If you make a break for a gun I'll bust you wide open!"

"Peck, you're a bigger fool than I thought you were," Rawlins told him, apparently without any deeper feeling than a man would have in stating an obvious fact.

"I'll show you how big a fool I am if you keep on talkin', Rawlins. I'm just big enough fool, maybe, to shoot you like I did that other feller. Who's here to swear you didn't pull your gun first?"

"Well, anyhow," said Rawlins, apparently undisturbed, "I decline your offer for my improvements and possession of this place. It wouldn't do you any good even if you could make your bluff go."

Rawlins, calm as he seemed, was boiling with inward rage. He was picking up and casting away the fugacious schemes which came rushing into his mind for getting the upper hand of Peck. It was as if he ran swiftly along in a dream, snatching at something on which his life depended, only to clasp nothing, his despair increasing at every step. Peck's cupidity, his new sense of importance, with the promises of reward