They
went carefully around the thicket, guided by the pungent odor of burning
pine wood, and halted so abruptly that Swan and Lone bumped into them
from behind. A man had risen up from the campfire and faced them, his
hands rising slowly, palms outward.
"Warfield, by----!" Al blurted in his outraged astonishment. "Trailing
me with a bunch, are yuh? I knew you'd double-cross your own father--but
I never thought you had it in you to do it in the open. Damn yuh, what
d'yuh want that you expect to get?"
Warfield stared at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at
Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with
the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at
Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his
disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on his face.
"I think I know the play you're making, but it won't get you anything,
Bill Warfield. You think I slipped up--and you told me not to let my
foot slip; said you'd hate to lose me. Well, you're the one that
slipped, you damned, rotten coward.
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