"What do you mean?"
"You don't go to bed in this room," repeated Paul. "This room is mine. I have a better claim to it than you, for I engaged it first."
"I do not feel safe in passing the night in your company."
"That is nothing to me."
"Listen, Luke Denton. Unless you leave this room at once I will ring the bell, summon the landlord, and denounce you as an escaped convict."
Luke Denton was so angry that, had he been armed, he might have fired at our hero, but his stock of money had been too limited to allow him to purchase a pistol.
"Nonsense!" he said. "I will do you no harm."
"Are you going?" asked Paul, still keeping him covered with his weapon.
There was no help for it. With a muttered execration Luke Denton left the room, and Paul, glad to be rid of him, locked the door, and breathed a sigh of relief.
It may be well to add here that Denton was not recaptured, but months afterward was shot in California by a miner whom he had robbed. It was a sad ending to a life which might have been honorably spent, for he was a man of excellent abilities and capacity, but preferred the hazardous career of a thief to the more prosaic paths of industry and honesty.