"Surely you trust me, Sam," whined Mike, getting up.
"I don't trust any living man. Who fired that shot at me when I was leaving?"
"So help me," protested Mike, "I dunno. I wasn't in the bar at the time. I can prove I wasn't. Yer not looking well, Sam."
"Blister you for a slow dawdler, you'd not look well either, if you had no sleep for a week and was starved into the bargain. Get a move on you."
Sam ate like a wild beast what was set before him, and although he took a stiff glass of whiskey and water at the beginning, he now drank sparingly. He laid the revolver on the table at his elbow, and made Mike sit opposite him. When the ravenous meal was finished, he pushed the plate from him and looked across at Davlin.
"When I said I didn't trust you, Mike, I was a liar. I do, an' I'll prove it. When it's your interest to befriend a man, you'll do it every time."
"I will that," said Mike, not quite comprehending what the other had said.
"Now listen to me, Mike, and be sure you do exactly as I tell you. Go to where the bank manager lives and rouse him up as I roused you. He'll not be afraid when he sees it's you. Tell him you've got me over in the saloon, and that I've come to rob the bank of that fifty thousand dollars. Say that I'm desperate and can't be taken short of a dozen lives, and there is no lie in that, as you know. Tell him you've fallen in with my plans, and that we'll go over there and hold him up. Tell him the only chance of catching me is by a trick. He's to open the door of the place where the money is, and you're to shove me in and lock me up. But when he opens the door I'll send a bullet through him, and you and me will divide the money. Nobody will suspect you, for nobody'll know you were there but the bank man, and he'll be dead. But if you make one move except as I tell you the first bullet goes through you. See?"
Mike's eyes opened wider and wider as the scheme was disclosed. "Lord, what a head you have, Sam!" he said. "Why didn't you think of that before? The bank manager is in Austin."
"What the blazes is he doing there?"