"I'll take you first, you
imitation swell, because I'm saving Jimmie Carlisle to the last!" went
on Joe's crunching voice. "I'm going to twist your damned neck for
what you've helped do to my girl, but if you want to say anything
first, say it."
Barney's response was a swift movement of his right hand toward his
left armpit. But Barney Palmer, like almost all his kind, was a very
indifferent gunman; and he had no knowledge of the reputation for
masterful quickness that had been Joe Ellison's twenty years earlier.
Before his compact automatic was fairly out of its holster beneath his
armpit, it was in Joe Ellison's hands.
"I sized you up for that kind of rat and was watching you," continued
Joe in his same awful grimness. "I'm not going to shoot you, unless
you make me. I'm going to twist that pretty neck of yours. But first,
out with anything you've got to say for yourself!"
"I haven't had anything to do with this business," said Barney, trying
to affect a bold manner.
"You lie! I know that in this game against Dick Sherwood, in which you
used my girl, you were the real leader!"
"Well--even if I did use your girl, I only used her the way I found
her."
"You lie again! I know how your kind work: cleverly putting crooked
ideas into girls' minds, and exciting their imagination, so they'll
work with you.
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