“No, I didn't. I'd rather—”
Two men came in, one going over to the desk where he apparently wrote a check, the other came straight to the window. Bud looked into the heavily bearded face of a man who had the eyes of Lew Morris. He shifted his position a little so that he faced the man's right side. The one at the desk was glancing slyly over his shoulder at the bookkeeper, who had just returned to his work.
“Can you change this twenty so I can get seven dollars and a quarter out of it?” asked the man at he window. As he slid the bill through the wicket he started to sneeze, and reached backward—for his handkerchief, apparently.
“Here's one,” said Bud. “Don't sneeze too hard, old-timer, or you're liable to sneeze your whiskers all off. It's happened before.”
Someone outside fired a shot in at Bud, clipping his hatband in front. At the sound of the shot the whiskered one snatched his gun out, and the cashier shot him. Bud had sent a shot through the outside window and hit somebody—whom, he did not know, for he had no time to look. The young fellow at the desk had whirled, and was pointing a gun shakily, first at he cashier and then at Bud. Bud fired and knocked he gun out of his hand, then stepped over the man he suspected was Lew and caught the young fellow by the wrist.
“You're Ed Collier—by your eyes and your mouth,” Bud said in a rapid undertone. “I'm going to get you out of this, if you'll do what I say. Will you?”
“He got me in here, honest,” the young fellow quaked. He couldn't be more than nineteen, Bud guessed swiftly.
“Let me through, Jimmy,” Bud ordered hurriedly. “You got the man that put up this job. I'll take the kid out the back way, if you don't mind.”
Jimmy opened the steel-grilled door and let them through.
“Ed Collier,” he said in a tone of recognition. “I heard he was trailing—”