Timber-Wolf's mood softened and the old bright laughter welled up in his dancing blue eyes.
"I pass it to you, Kid," he chuckled. "You've grown a man since last we met. We'll not forget, either one of us ... will we?... that night in my cabin?"
"I'll not forget," returned Deveril coolly. "And some day I'll square the count."
"You'll square the count?" The keen eyes twinkled like bits of deep-blue glass on a frosty morning. "I was under the impression that always you have held that I was the man to square things. Accusing me, as you did, of so wicked a deed!"
"It was a treacherous thing at best," muttered Deveril, his own eyes bleak with that bitter hatred which never slept. "I didn't know then that you were, among other things, a damned thief."
Timber-Wolf's sudden laughter boomed out joyously, and he smote his thigh so that the sound was sharp and loud, like a gunshot.
"But you knew that always and always and once again always I take what I want! I asked you for the money, and I made you a fair proposition: I would guarantee that you doubled your dinky three thousand, and I'd see you had interest on top of it. And you hadn't the nerve to chip in...."
"Wasn't the fool, you mean!"
"And so ... I went and took it! And I took from other quarters the same way. What I wanted I took. And when they all said I was busted in two, like a rotten stick, I fooled 'em, and laughed at the whole crowd. And now I'm whole again—and I've got what I want. That's me, Baby Devil! A man who goes his way and blazes his trail wide. A man you can't stop!"
"A cursed, insufferable, conceited ass, rather than wolf," snapped Deveril.