“What do you mean?”
“If you want to go it alone, I can’t stop you,” replied the puncher. “Needn’t think I’m sucking around you for any favors or friendship. If this was my range, I would run you off it so fast you’d reach Stockchute with your tongue hanging out like a dog’s. That’s how much I like you.”
“The feeling is fully reciprocated, I assure you,” rejoined Ashton.
“All right. Now what’re we going to do about him?––each play a lone hand, or make it pardners for this deal?”
“I––fail to understand,” hesitated Ashton.
“No, you don’t,” jeeringly contradicted the puncher. “It’s a three-cornered fight. You see it now, even if you have been too big a fool to see it before. We can settle ours after. But I’m free to own up to it that you’re a striped skunk if you won’t work with me first to get rid of him. Look at him now––and him married!”
Ashton’s flush deepened to purple. “Married!––yes, married!” he choked out. 256
“Right alongside his wife, too!” Gowan thrust the goad deeper. “You’d think even that brand of skunk would have more decency. Not that his wife is any friend of mine, like she is yours. But for a man with such a wife and baby ... with Miss Chuckie! The––”
Gowan ended with a string of oaths so virulent that even Ashton’s half-mad anger was checked.
“You may be––er––I fear that we––Perhaps it’s not so bad as it appears!” he stammered.