"But you don't trust me, neither," said he, "and if I was payin' you back the way you talk about, I 'd up and plug you through the head."
Argument was not in Donoghue's line but he cried out:
"And where would I be while you were tryin' it on?"
Farrell did not answer, and in the pause Donoghue did indeed continue the argument, unwittingly, to its logical conclusion:
"No, no, my boy," he said, "you would n't plug me here. You would n't plug me till we got you what you wanted. O! I know your kind well. You thought you held the trumps when you corralled the lad there," and he jerked his head in my direction, "But you did n't."
"It seems to me like as we did," said Farrell, with a vindictive leer, "else why are we here now?"
"Here now?" snapped Donoghue. "Why, you're here because my partner is so durned soft, times. He would n't—go—on—and leave the lad," he drawled contemptuously. "What good was the boy to you, anyhow?" he asked. "Looks as if you knew you were trying it on with a soft, queer fellow. I 'd ha' let you eat the boy if you wanted and jest taken a note o' your ugly blue mug in my mind and said to myself: 'Larry, my boy, when you see that feller ag'in after you 've got through with this Lost Cabin Mine—you shoot him on sight!'"
"And what if the mug was to follow you up?" said Farrell.
All this while there was no movement round the fire, only that I saw Apache Kid's hand drawing down the blankets from his face. Pinkerton and the half-breed were a little beyond Donoghue and lying somewhat back so that I did not know whether or not they were awakened by this talk. And just then Dan sat up suddenly, glared out upon the plain to the four points of the compass, and screamed out:
"The hosses! Where's the hosses?"