"It's pretty safe in the Wellsburg Bank, old man. You needn't worry about that. I think I'll find Toots and have the horses hitched up. We'll strike out for Bloomfield right away."
Mulloy lingered with Gallup as Frank turned away.
"Whativer is atin' yez, Ephie?" demanded Barney. "Phwoy don't yez spake up and tell the truth?"
"Haow do yeou know I ain't told the truth?" asked Gallup, with mingled offense and shame.
"Oi've bunked with yez for a year. Oi've known yez under all sorts of circumstances, me laddie buck, and I can tell when you're spakin' the whole truth and whin you're tryin' to hide something. Oi'm yer fri'nd, Eph, and ye know it. Phwoy don't ye spake out and make a clane breast av it? Phwat's the mather?"
"I don't like to have nobody stomp on my co't tail," mumbled the Vermonter. "When a man rubs me the wrong way it kinder riles me, and I'm pretty apt to resent it. Yeou'd made a bet with old Silence if Frank hadn't happened araound, wouldn't ye?"
"Oi would," confessed Barney. "Oi'd been just chump enough to go him for any owld sum up to foive hundrid dollars. All the same, Ephie, thot was foolishness on my part."
"What's a feller goin' to do when one of these top-lofty critters comes araound a-rubbin' it into him?" demanded Gallup. "Nobody likes to have 'em a-sneerin' and a-chucklin'. I like to shet them kind of folks up and shet 'em up good and hard. I've seen old Silence sence we left the bank."
"Phwat?" gasped Mulloy, a sudden light breaking upon him. "Ye don't mane it, Ephie? Begorra, ye've been bettin' on the game!"
"That's jest what I have," nodded Gallup grimly. "Arter yeou and Frank went off and I went to roamin' araound I run up ag'inst the big bear. He give me a cigar, and we went into Priley's Hotel. He wanted me to have a drink with him, but I didn't take nuthin' intoxicatin'. Silence was there, with a whole lot of them baseball fellers. They was makin' a lot of talk abaout haow they'd trim us to-morrer. They gut my blood to b'iling, and I told 'em a few things. That critter, Silence, begun to give me the laugh. He said us fellers made a lot of talk, but we didn't have sand to back it up. Dod bim him! I guess I showed him I had sand!"