“What do you want, pardner?” demanded the bad man, coming through the brush.
“Lend me a couple of hundred dollars, Pete,” laughed ’Gene Black.
“Did you call me here for any such fool talk as that?” scowled Pete.
“No,” Black admitted. “Pete, I don’t believe you have two hundred dollars. But you’d like to have. Now, wouldn’t you!”
“Two hundred silver bricks,” retorted Bad Pete, his eyes gleaming, “is the price of shooting up a whole town. Pardner, just get me an extra box of cartridges and lead me to that town! But have you got the money?”
“Yes,” laughed Black, holding up a roll of greenbacks. “This and more, too!”
Bad Pete surveyed the money hungrily.
“Some men who know me,” he muttered thickly, “would be afraid to show me a whole bankful of money when there was no one else looking.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Pete,” replied Black quietly. “You might shoot me, if you felt you could get away with it. Do you notice that my left hand is in my pocket! I’m a left-handed shooter, you see.”
Pete glanced covertly at that bulging left trousers’ pocket of the engineer.