"No," he answered.
"If you ain't laughing," continued the brute, "what are you doing?"
"Just thinking how sorry I am for you," Hal flashed back coolly.
"Sorry?" echoed the fellow bitterly. "You'd better waste your sorrow on yourself! What are you feeling badly about me for?"
"I was thinking," went on Hal slowly, and with no trace of taunt in his voice, "what a sad come-down you have had. You were in the Army, wearing its uniform, and with every right to look upon yourself as a man. You could have gone on being trusted. You could have raised yourself. Instead, you have followed a naturally bad bent and made yourself a thousand times worse than you ever needed to be. Hinkey, do you wonder that I'm sorry for you, when I find that you have fallen outside of an honest man's estate?"
"Good! Tell him some more, Sarge," came from Dietz.
"Do you hear that?" raged Hinkey, turning and catching his new leader's eye. "Do you hear what the boot-lick insinuates about the new crowd I've joined?"
"It's your affair—your battle, Hinkey," replied the leader grimly. "Don't try to drag us in."
"You're making such a beast of yourself, Hinkey, that even your own gang don't respect you," taunted Johnson.
"A crowd of Colorado wild-cats couldn't respect such a fellow," supplied Dietz.