A world of meaning in those two small words—a world of dread controlled. He merely stared at her thoughtfully.
"I hit the wrong trail, lady," he said quietly. "I was looking for somebody else."
She started. "You were after—" She stopped.
"That's right, I guess," he admitted.
"How many of you are there?" she asked curiously, so curiously that she seemed to be forgetting the danger. "Poor Carry Smith with a mob—" She stopped suddenly again. "What did you do to Harry Morgan?"
"I left him safe and quiet," said Ronicky Doone.
The girl's face hardened strangely. "What you are, and what your game is I don't know," she said. "But I'll tell you this: I'm letting you play as if you had all the cards in the deck. But you haven't. I've got one ace that'll take all your trumps. Suppose I call once what'll happen to you, pal?"
"You don't dare call," he said.
"Don't dare me," said the girl angrily. "I hate a dare worse than anything in the world, almost." For a moment her green-blue eyes were pools of light flashing angrily at him.
Into the hand of Ronicky Doone, with that magic speed and grace for which his fame was growing so great in the mountain desert, came the long, glimmering body of the revolver, and, holding it at the hip, he threatened her.