“If you think the place ought to be cleaned up, why don’t you do it yourself?” David shot back.
“Huh! Maybe I will, some day—if you don’t beat me to it.”
“But if I should beat you to it, I suppose you’ll come after me with a gun. Is that the way of it?”
The shadow that flitted across the swarthy face of the man on the opposite bunk was scarcely a smile, though possibly it was intended for one.
“I might; but it’d be a heap like takin’ candy from a baby. You ain’t been carryin’ a gun long enough to get the hang of it. You’re a whole lot too slow to make it interestin’.”
“All right,” said David; “we’ll pass that up. The next thing may get a bit nearer to you. Judith Fallon has doubtless told you that she knew me back East, and that we went to school together and were good friends?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But perhaps she hasn’t told you that I have tried to persuade her to break off with you and leave Powder Can?”
“No; she ain’t told me anything like that.”
“Well, it’s so; I did it.”