"I want the word of Jeff Rankin that he'll see me through till I've made my talk to you and my proposition."
It was an excellent counterthrust, but Larry la Roche saw through the attempt to win Jeff immediately.
"You skunk!" he said. "If you don't trust us we don't trust you. Stay where you be. We don't want to hear your talk!"
"Jeff, what do you say?" continued Andrew calmly.
There was a clamor of three voices and then the louder voice of Jeff, like a lion shaking itself clear of wolves: "Andy, come in, and I'll see you get a square deal—if you'll trust me!"
Instantly Andrew threw open the door and stepped in, his revolver in one hand, the heavy sack over his other arm, a dragging weight and also a protection.
"I'll trust you, Jeff," he said. "Trust you? Why, man, with you at my back I'd laugh at twenty fellows like these. They simply don't count."
It was another well-placed shot, and he saw Rankin flush heavily with pleasure. Scottie tilted his box back against the wall and delivered his counterstroke: "He said the same thing to me earlier on in the evening," he remarked casually. "But I told him where to go. I told him that I was with the bunch first and last and all the time. That's why he hates me!"