"Nothin', Seth? I guess when I tell you what got her dander up you'll figger you've got another think comin'. You're like a good many men I see—you're bein' stung. That smooth proposition, Bulldog Carney, is stingin' you right here in your own nest."
Biff!
That was the lady's hand, flat open, impinged on the speaker's cheek.
The Wolf sprang back with an oath, put his hand to his cheek, and turned to Seth with a volley of denunciation starting from his lips. At a look that swept over the proprietor's face he turned, stared, and stifling an oath dropped a hand subconsciously to the butt of his gun.
Bulldog Carney had stepped quickly across the room, and was now at his side, saying:
"So you're here, Jack the Wolf, eh? I thought I had rid civilization of your ugly presence when I turned you over to the police at Hobbema for murdering your mate."
"That was a trumped-up charge," the Wolf stammered.
"Ah! I see—acquitted! I can guess it in once. Nobody saw you put that little round hole in the back of Alberta Bill's head—not even Bill; and he was dead and couldn't talk."
Carney's gray eyes travelled up and down the Wolf's form in a cold, searching manner; then he added, with the same aggravating drawl: "You put your hands up on the bar, same as you were set when I came in, or something will happen. I've got a proposition."
The Wolf hesitated; but Bulldog's right hand rested carelessly on his belt. Slowly the Wolf lifted his arm till his fingers touched the wooden rail, saying, surlily: