Talk to me, boy!"
"Mac, you've finished the job," came the husky whisper.
Mac Strann raised his head, and his terrible eyes fixed upon Dan Barry.
And there was no pity in the face of the other. The first threat had
wiped every vestige of human tenderness out of his eyes, and now, with
something like a sneer on his lips, and with a glimmer of yellow light
in his eyes, he was backing towards the door, and noiselessly as a
shadow he slipped out and was gone.
CHAPTER XII
FINESSE
"A man talks because he's drunk or lonesome; a girl talks because that's
her way of takin' exercise."
This was a maxim of Buck Daniels, and Buck Daniels knew a great deal
about women, as many a school marm and many a rancher's daughter of the
mountain-desert could testify.
Also Buck Daniels said of women: "It ain't what you say to 'em so much
as the tune you put it to."
Now he sat this day in O'Brien's hotel dining-room. It was the lazy and
idle hour between three and four in the afternoon, and since the men of
the mountain-desert eat promptly at six, twelve, and six, there was not
a soul in the room when he entered. Nor was there a hint of eating
utensils on the tables. Nevertheless Buck Daniels was not dismayed. He
selected a corner-table by instinct and smote upon the surface with the
flat of his hand. It made a report like the spat of a forty-five; heavy
footsteps approached, a door flung open, and a cross-eyed slattern stood
in the opening.
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