But don't fool
yourself, Archie, don't fool yourself. If we light, we're fighting
with a regular guy, your insinuation to the contrary. I merely wanted
you to realize what I know now. We'll think we've been in a battle
before we come to a finish!"
His hand was on the door knob when the door itself flashed open.
Dexter Allison's daughter hesitated, surprised, on the threshold. Her
eyes, brilliantly alight, leaped from her father's face to that of the
man half toward her and back again.
"Oh," she exclaimed uncertainly, "I didn't know you were busy. I saw
the light. I'd been over to Uncle Cal's, just for a minute. I wanted
to tell you--good night!"
CHAPTER XIII
THIS LITERARY THING
It was dark, the night of that second day, when Stephen O'Mara came
quietly up to the open door of his own lighted shack and stopped for a
moment to gaze in at the two men whose faces were touched by the glow
of the lamp on the table. There had been more than one moment in those
forty-eight hours which had elapsed since he had lifted that
black-robed, inert figure from the floor in which Steve had wondered
whether Garry Devereau would even await his return to Thirty-Mile; more
than once he had smiled whimsically to himself, during the trip back
up-river, over the scene which he was certain would meet his eyes, had
Garry chosen to wait.
But there were no poker chips in front of Fat Joe that night.
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