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was in the door when Dunham reached the hotel, as strained and nervous as if he, and not his guest, stood under conditional sentence of death.

"Oh, here you come!" he said, greatly relieved, bustling inside with the evident intention of speeding his guest's departure. "I was wonderin' when you'd be along—you ain't got any too much time."

Dunham lounged up to the showcase, looking over the brands of cigars as if he considered a purchase. The symptoms of business were not observed by MacKinnon in his anxiety or, if noted, passed unimproved. He was waiting at the foot of the stairs, his attitude betraying his eagerness to be rid of this man, who was not in half the sweat to be on his way that the host was to have him go.

"I thought when I saw you go out with that gun on you it'd get you into trouble," MacKinnon said, feelingly deprecative of the affair.

"I had as much right to pack a gun as anybody else, didn't I?" Dunham asked, turning slowly from his study of the cigars.

"Sure; sure you did, Bill. I'm not sayin'—"

"Because I look green it don't give anybody else the right to take it away from me, dees it?"