"That's it, marm."

"And Nick Carter sent them all to prison, did he?"

"He did that."

"How does it happen that he didn't send you along with them?"

"Well, I managed to slip out just in time," said Slippery, with one of his sheepish grins; "but he sent a bullet after me when I was running away that singed the hair over my right ear, and taking it all in all I hate him about as much as anybody."

"Not enough to kill him if I should ask you to do it, do you?"

"Well, Madge, when it comes to killing, that ain't in my line; but if you want me to lead him on somehow where somebody else could do the job, I think I'd be about the covey that could do it."

"That'll do for you. Sit down, Slippery."

"What's your name?" she added to the man who was next him.

A dark, beetle-browed, heavy-jawed, coarse-featured man, who looked as if he was as powerful as a giant, rose slowly to his feet, and replied in a surly tone, and with an ugly glitter in his eyes: