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 Cottonwood, and the street was empty at that moment, but Noggle looked round him with what appeared to be an apprehensive sweep before speaking to Hartwell, who had paused waiting the barber's approach.

Hartwell thought he was exploring around for sight of his dreaded enemy, Zeb Smith. Noggle, he noticed, was armed with a revolver that looked rather small in comparison with his length of limb. He kept putting back the skirt of his seersucker coat to show the weapon, which had a mother-ofpearl handle, and was slung in a holster of patent leather.

"Hi're y'u?" said Noggle, still turning his look up and down the street, an air of abstraction and uneasiness about him altogether strange.

"Middlin'," Texas replied. "Was you headin' for home?"

"Ye-es," allowed the barber, standing with his revolver showing under the street light, looking this way and that, his mind plainly not on his answer.

"I'm headin' down that di-rection," said Texas.

Noggle did not make any move to fall in for the march to Malvina's embrace. He stood teetering on his long legs like some kind of insect stuck in glue, watching around him with an air of suspicion and fear that spoke little for his confidence in his gun.