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 from afar. He must have looked as big as a church steeple to the barber, whose eyes began to grow as his jaw fell and his breath came short.

"There he is, there he is!" he whispered, shrinking behind his conductor. "You got your gun? Yes, oh, yes—you got it!"

Noggle sighed in the assurance and relief that the sight of the gun gave him, and Texas took him by the arm with firm grasp to hold him abreast and marched him so close up to Zeb Smith he could smell him. Smith came out to the sidewalk and glared fiercely on them as they passed under the bright lights.

"Huh! hired a nurse!" he scoffed.

Texas felt Noggle's flesh tremble under the sound of the rough taunting voice. Noggle could not have framed a word if his life depended on it, for his tongue was frozen against his teeth with fear, but Texas let go of his arm, turned and gave Smith a look that drove him like a kicked dog to the shelter of his door. His cur's courage returned to him there; he stood calling insults after them which drew laughter from the loungers at hand.

When they turned the corner the barber's breath began to go down as far as his first vest button again. He drew out his perfumed handkerchief from his breast pocket—where a corner of it was always displayed in the refinement of fashion and