Parker, surveying his red cheek knobs, his cruel gray eyes narrowed now in evil mirth, recollected with a photographic flash of memory of the details of that story the postmaster at Sunkhaze had told him. This was the same man who had coolly stolen wife and property from his own brother and then had jeered at him, probably with that same expression puckering about his evil, gray eyes. In the sudden revulsion of his feelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait held out to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He remembered cases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended in becoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribe that had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned that it had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himself that, offered by another, it might have won him—and he felt a little quiver of fear at the thought.
But when he pictured himself as the associate of this old harpy who sat leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of proprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of his indignation on behalf of the cheated brother.
“That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?” inquired Ward, misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks.
“I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for a moment,” replied the young man.
“Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men—especially a young man,” said the colonel blandly.
“But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew what it was to resist temptation,” shouted Parker. “And I'm going to tell you now and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with you than I'd poison myself with paris green.” He flung himself back in his chair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation.
For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise was greater, for he believed that he had landed his fish.
“And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you, either,” cried the young man, his voice trembling.
“I've read about such critters as you be,” said the colonel slowly, “but it was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn't believe it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died young and went to heaven—the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and he didn't die—went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't and pants.”
Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder.