"I've come down for another melodeon. I've got to have one, too."

"Another——"

And Oswald Melvin knew his drunken whim-driver for what he had really been.

"The yarn I told you about myself was true enough," continued Stingaree. "Only the names were altered, as they say; it happened to the other fellow, not to me. I made it happen. He is hardly likely to have lived to tell the tale."

"Did he really try to betray you after what you'd done for him?"

"More or less. He looked on me as fair game."

"But you had saved his life?"

Stingaree shrugged.

"We rode across him."

"And you think he perished of dust and thirst?"