Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/21

 an object of contempt. "And if you hadn't been drivin' down to haul out this greenhorn you'd 'a' gone gunnin' for that feller up there without countin' the cost."

"I sure would, mister!"

"Well, you've paid for my advice; what're you goin' to do with it?"

"I'll let him live on," Dan declared, twisting his head in expression of deep seriousness.

"Stop in and see me when you come to town," Thomson invited, offering his hand with his words.

This unaccountable unbending from what had appeared to Dan a scornful coldness, winded him for a moment, paralyzing all effort of response. He appeared to stand doubting, as if charges were expected to go with this approach to friendliness and well-wishing.

"I sure will, Mr. Thomson," he responded heartily, grasping the lawyer's hand as warmly as if it had dragged him from the gibbet and restored him to the joyous ways of life.

As Dan Gustin went his way down the street, Lawyer Thomson stood in his door looking after him, no line of disdain, amusement, satisfaction, or any emotion that the eye could interpret in his inscrutable face. Presently he turned into his office, where he began to pry dustily into his records contained in a little set of drawers that once had held spool cotton thread. With chair drawn close against this homely little cabinet, which was nailed to the wall and braced by two rough boards on long slant to the floor, Thomson thumbed his untidy papers until he came at last to that which