The huge man laughed gently. He'd made one mistake; few could accuse him of repeating in stupidity. He took accurate stock of the symptoms; set his sights upon what he surmised must be the bull's-eye of Blue Jeans' discontent; waited a nicely balanced moment, and fired.
"How," he inquired in a tone both mild and unsensational, "how would you like to earn two hundred dollars?"
But the shot did not take effect as he had expected it to. Instead of snapping back Blue Jeans' curly head sank a little lower. Though his inward start at the query had been great his outward display of emotion was scarcely visible. For perceiving that this was a deliberate attempt to arouse his interest, he dissembled it and exhibited no interest at all.
"I balk at murder," he replied with careful indifference and no flicker of jocularity. "And it would have to be that, to earn that much money. Two hundred dollars is a fortune; so's one; so's fifty. But I'm kind of particular that way—though the offer is liberal—it is so! I admit that, but I—"
He would have gone on rambling had not the other stopped him.
"Sure, it's a nice bunch of coin." And then, daring to be facetious himself, though adhering still to his admirable and just-formed plan of not disclosing too much at once:
"You'd not have to kill him, you know. Half of what you did to your friend on the roan horse would be plenty and to spare."
"He was no friend of mine," Blue Jeans corrected coldly. "We'd just barely begun to get acquainted."
"Lucky for him!" Indeed, despite his personality, the huge man had a lively wit.
"A life-long friendship would have proved fatal!"