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Page 42
"If you've got the sand!" Norton taunted him, his blood running hot
with the fierce wish to have done with sidestepping and
procrastination. "If you've got the sand, Jim Galloway!"
"It's better than an even break that I could get you," said Galloway at
last. "And, at that, it's an even break or nearly so, that as you
slipped out of the saddle you'd get me, too. . . . You take the pot
this time, Norton; I'm not betting." Shifting his hand he laid it
loosely upon the horn of his saddle. As he did so his chest inflated
deeply to a long breath.
Norton's uplifted hand came down swiftly, his thumb catching in his
belt. There was a contemptuous glitter in his eyes.
"After this," he said bluntly, "you'll always know and I'll always know
that you are afraid. I make it a part of my business not to
under-estimate the man I go out to get; I think I have overestimated
you."
For a moment Galloway seemed not to have heard as he stared away
through the gray distances. When he brought his eyes back to Norton's
they were speculative.
"Men like you and me ought to understand each other and not make any
mistakes," he said, speaking slowly. "I have just begun to imagine
lately that I have been doping you up wrong all the time. Now I've got
two propositions to make you; you can take either or neither."
"It will probably be neither; what are they? I've got a day's ride
ahead of me."
"Maybe you have; maybe you haven't. That depends on what you say to my
proposition. You're looking for Vidal Nu�ez, they tell me?"
"And I'm going to get him; as much as anything for the sake of swatting
the devil around the stump."
"Meaning me?" Galloway shrugged. "Well, here's my song and dance: This
county isn't quite big enough; you drop your little job and clear out
and leave me alone and I'll pay you ten thousand dollars now and
another ten thousand six months from now."
"Offer number one," said Norton, manifesting neither surprise nor
interest even. "Twenty thousand dollars to pull my freight. Well, Jim
Galloway, you must have something on the line that pulls like a big
fish. Now, let's have the other barrel."
"I have suggested that you clean out; the other suggestion is that, if
you won't get out of my way, you get busy on your job. Vidal Nu�ez
will be at the Casa Blanca to-night. I have sent word for him to come
in and that I'd look out for him. Come, get him. Which will you take,
Rod Norton? Twenty thousand iron men or your chances at the Casa
Blanca?"
It was Norton's turn to grow thoughtful. Galloway was rolling a
cigarette. The sheriff reached for his own tobacco and papers. Only
when he had set a match to the brown cylinder and drawn the first of
the smoke did he answer.
"You've said it all now, have you?" he demanded.
"Yes," said Galloway. "It's up to you this time. What's the word?"
Norton laughed.
"When I decide what I am going to do I always do it," he said lightly.
"And as a rule I don't do a lot of talking about it beforehand. I'll
leave you to guess the answer, Galloway."
Galloway shrugged and swung his horse back into the trail.
"So long," he said colorlessly.
"So long," Norton returned.
CHAPTER XI
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