"I've come to make a bargain, Dozier," he said.
The other made no comment, and the two continued that silent struggle of the eyes that was making Andrew's throat dry and his heart leap.
"Here's the bargain: Drop off this trail. Let the law take its own course through other hands, but you give me your word to keep off the trail. If you'll do that I'll leave this country and stay away. Except for one thing, I'll never come back here. You're a proud man; you've never quit a trail yet before the end of it. But this time I only ask you to let it go with running me out of the country."
"What's the one thing for which you'd come back?"
"I'll come back—once—because of a girl."
He saw the eyes of Dozier widen and then contract again. "You're not exactly what I expected to find," he said. "But go on. If I don't take the bargain you pull that trigger?"
"Exactly."
"H'm! You may have heard the voices of the men who came up the hall with me?"
"Yes."
"The moment a report of a gun is heard they'll swarm up to this room and get you."