"'How do you make that out a square deal?' asked Pendleton.
"'Because,' replied Gately, pretty convincingly, 'it was me that took the chance. I made a mistake, and stood to lose the house's $2600. If I hadn't taken a chance, they'd have got the coin. If I'd have won their $2600, your shack would have been shot into a sieve, and me into the bargain. It was a case of run. I had to do the running. I earned the $2600, and I hang on to it.'
"It struck me that this was pretty square talk, and I told Pendleton so, and advised him to cut out any idea of getting all the money back from Gately through the medium of a gun-play. Gately handed out $2600, and then he told us how he had got away. He had struck across the prairie for Mulhall, and some of the McAtee gang, in scouring the country a-horseback, had not only been right behind him, but they had passed him. He heard them coming from behind, and he thought they had recognized him in the twilight. He didn't dare to look back, but he stooped down as if to tie his shoe, and looked at them under his arm while in that stooping posture. They didn't figure that the man they were after would be taking things so leisurely as all that, and so they passed right by him in the gathering gloom, a-hunting Gately. Gately got to Mulhall, and took the first train up for Omaha.
"Before we got back to Guthrie, Jink McAtee and several of his pals in the pool to smash the Gately squeeze-spindle had been given the sudden chase by the United States Deputy Marshals for some horse-rustling operation of theirs that had just come to light, and when Jink McAtee got shot full of slugs by a posse down in the Brazos bottoms, three years later, the Reeves-Pendleton layout still stood indebted to him in the sum of $4600 with accrued interest, the balance that Jink and his push did not pull down in their attempt to stampede a squeeze-spindle layout."
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Nine Splendid Novels by WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
THE PIRATE OF PANAMA
A tale of old-time pirates and of modern love, hate and adventure. The scene is laid in San Francisco on board The Argus and in Panama. A romantic search for the lost pirate gold. An absorbing love-story runs through the book.
12mo. Cloth, Jacket in Colors. Net $1.25.