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 Noggle looked steadily at Fannie, his chin thrust out, his powdered forehead wrinkled in a scowl. Perhaps he was trying the effect on her of an expression of fierceness which he had studied out before his mirror. If so, it looked as if he'd have to design a new one, for Fannie only laughed at him and turned her back.

"If you're hintin' at Zeb Smith, I can lead you to him," Texas offered.

"I don't want bloodshed, I don't want to git mixed up in any more of it if I can help it," said Noggle, as if his past had been drenched with the sanguinary fluid that waters human hearts, "but I ain't a goin' to hide out from no man, neither."

"I'll send him down to the shop, if it will oblige you any, sir."

"Don't you do it, don't you do it!" Noggle protested with undignified haste.

"If you don't wish it, sir—"

"I don't want to muss up the shop."

It takes a bluffer to color a thing like that with the significance, the unexpressed ferocity, that gives it weight. Noggle had practiced the art a long time; there wasn't a match for him between the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, with Zeb Smith in the contest.

"Yes, sir, I reckon they'll be some ground tore