Montgomery told himself he would go home; he had seen the last of the gambler and Marsh Langham, he would look out for his own skin now and they could look out for theirs. He laughed boisterously as he strode along. He had fooled them both; he, Joe Montgomery, had done this, and by a very master stroke of cunning had tied the judge’s hands. But as he shuffled down the street he saw the welcoming lights of Lonigan’s saloon and suddenly remembered there was good hard money in his ragged pockets. He would have just one drink and then go home to his old woman.

It was well on toward midnight when he came out on the street again, and the one drink had become many drinks; still mindful of his original purpose, however, he reeled across the Square on his way home. He had just turned into Mulberry Street when he became conscious of a brisk step on the pavement at his side, and at the same instant a heavy hand descended on his shoulder and he found himself looking into Andy Gilmore’s dark face.

“Where have you been?” demanded Gilmore. “I thought I told you to stay about to-night!”

“I have been down to Lonigan’s saloon,” faltered Joe, his courage going from him at sight of the gambler.

“What took you there?” asked Gilmore angrily. “Don’t you get enough to drink at my place?”

“Lots to drink, boss, but it’s mostly too rich for my blood. I ain’t used to bein’ so pampered.”

“Come along with me!” said Gilmore briefly.

“Where to, boss?” asked Montgomery, in feeble protest.

“You’ll know presently.”

“I thought I’d like to go home, maybe ” said Joe irresolutely.

“Never mind what you thought you’d like, you come with me!” insisted Gilmore.

Although the handy-man’s first impulse had been that of revolt, he now followed the gambler meekly back across the Square. They entered the building at the corner of Main Street and mounted to Mr. Gilmore’s rooms. The latter silently unlocked the door and motioned Montgomery to precede him into the apartment, then he followed, pausing midway of the room to turn up the gas which was burning low. Next he divested himself of his hat and coat, and going to a buffet which stood between the two heavily curtained windows that overlooked the Square, found a decanter and glasses. These he brought to the center-table, where he leisurely poured his unwilling guest a drink.

“Here, you old sot, soak this up!” he said genially.

“Boss, I want to go home to my old woman!” began the handy-man, after he had emptied his glass.

“Your old woman will keep!” retorted Gilmore shortly.

“But, boss, I got to go to her; the judge says I must! She’s been there to see him; damn it, she cried and hollered and took on awful because she ain’t seein’ me; it was pitiful!”

“What’s that?” demanded Gilmore sharply.

“It was pitiful!” repeated Montgomery, shaking his great head dolorously.

“Oh, cut that! Who have you seen?”

“Judge Langham.”

“When did you see him?”

Mr. Gilmore spoke with a forced calm.

“To-night. My old woman ”

“Oh, to hell with your old woman!” shouted the gambler furiously. “Do you mean that you were at Judge Langham’s to-night?”

“Yes, boss; he sent for me, see? I had to go!” explained Montgomery.

“Why did you go there without letting me know, you drunken loafer?” stormed Gilmore.

He took the handy-man by the arm and pushed him into a chair, then he stood above him, black-browed and menacing.

“Boss, don’t you blame me, it was my old woman; she wants me home with the kids and her, and the judge, he says I got to go!”

“If he wants to know why I’m keeping you here, send him round to me!” said Gilmore.

“All right, I will.” And Montgomery staggered to his feet.

But Gilmore pushed him back into his chair.

“What else did you talk about besides your old woman?” asked the gambler, after an oppressive silence in which Montgomery heard only the thump of his heart against his ribs.

“I told him you’d always been like a father to me ” said the handy-man, ready to weep.

“I’m obliged to you for that!” replied Gilmore with a smile of grim humor.

“He said he always knowed it,” added Montgomery, misled by the smile.

“Well, what else?” questioned Gilmore.

“Why, I reckon that was about all!” said Joe, who had ventured as far afield into the realms of fancy as his drunken faculties would allow.

“You’re sure about that?”

“I hope I may die ”

“And the judge says you’re to go home?”

“Say, Shrimp took my old woman there, and she cried and bellered and carried on awful! She loves me, boss the judge says I’m to go home to her to-night or he’ll have me pinched. He says that you and Marsh ain’t to keep me here no longer!”

His voice rose into a wail, for blind terror was laying hold of him. There was something, a look on Gilmore’s handsome cruel face, he did not understand but which filled him with miserable foreboding.

“What’s that, about Marsh and me keeping you here?” inquired Gilmore.

“You got to leave me loose ”

“So you told him that?”

“I had to tell him somethin’. My old woman made an awful fuss! They had to throw water on her; Shrimp took her home in an express-wagon. Hell, boss, I’m a married man I got a family! I know what I ought to do, and I’m goin’ home, the judge says I got to! Him and me talked it all over, and he’s goin’ to speak to Marsh about keepin’ me here!”

“So you’ve told him we keep you here?” And the gambler glowered at him. He poured himself a drink of whisky and swallowed it at a gulp. “Well, what else did you tell him?” he asked over the rim of his glass.

“That’s about all; only me and the judge understand each other,” said the handy-man vaguely.

“Well, it was enough!” rejoined Gilmore. “You are sure you didn’t say anything about North?”

Montgomery shook his head in vigorous denial.

“Sure?” repeated Gilmore, his glance intent and piercing. “Sure?”

A sickly pallor was overspreading the handy-man’s flame-colored visage. It began at his heavy puffy jaws, and diffused itself about his cheeks. He could feel it spread.

“Sure?” said the gambler. “Sure?”

There was an awful pause. Gilmore carefully replaced his glass on the table, then he roared in a voice of thunder:

“Stand up, you hound!”

Montgomery realized that the consequences of his treachery were to be swift and terrible. He came slowly to his feet, but no sooner had he gained them than Gilmore drove his fist into his face, and he collapsed on his chair.

“Stand up!” roared Gilmore again.

And again Montgomery came erect only to be knocked back into a sitting posture, with a long gash across his jaw where the gambler’s diamond ring had left its mark.

“I tell you, stand up!” cried Gilmore.

Reaching forward he seized Montgomery by the throat with his left hand and jerked him to his feet, then holding him so, he coolly battered his face with his free hand.

“For God’s sake, quit, boss you’re killin’ me!” cried Joe, as he vainly sought to protect his face with his arms.

But Mr. Gilmore had a primitive prejudice in favor of brute force, and the cruel blows continued until Montgomery seemed to lose power even to attempt to shield himself; his great hands hung helpless at his side and his head fell over on his shoulder. Seeing which the gambler released his victim, who, limp and quivering, dropped to the floor.

Still crazed with rage, Gilmore kicked the handy-man into a corner, and turning poured himself still another drink of whisky. If he had spoken then of what was uppermost in his mind, it would have been to complain of the rotten luck which in so ticklish a business had furnished him with fools and sots for associates. He should have known better than to have trusted drunken Joe Montgomery; he should have kept out of the whole business

With the suddenness of revelation he realized his own predicament, but with the realization came the knowledge that he was now hopelessly involved; that he could not go back; that he must go on, or here he threw back his shoulders as though to cast off his evil forebodings or between the dusk of one day and the dawn of another, he might disappear from Mount Hope.

With this cheering possibility in mind, he picked up the glass of whisky beside him and emptied it at a single draught, then he put on his overcoat and hat and went from the room, locking the door behind him.

Presently the wretched heap on the floor stirred and moaned feebly, and then lay still. A little later it moaned again. Lifting his head he stared vacantly about him.

“Boss ” he began in a tone of entreaty, but realizing that he was alone he fell weakly to cursing Gilmore.

It was a good five minutes from the time he recovered consciousness until he was able to assume a sitting posture, when he rested his battered face in his hands and nursed his bruises.

“And me his cousin!” he muttered, and groaned again.

He feebly wiped his bloody hands on the legs of his trousers and by an effort staggered to his feet. His only idea was escape; and steadying himself he managed to reach the door; but the door was locked, and he flung himself down in a convenient chair and once more fell to nursing his wounds.

Fifteen or twenty minutes had passed when he heard steps in the hallway. He knew it was Gilmore returning, but the gambler was not alone; Montgomery heard him speak to his companion as a key was fitted to the lock. The door swung open and Gilmore, followed by Marshall Langham, entered the room.

“Here’s the drunken hound, Marsh!” said the gambler.

“For God’s sake, boss, let me out of this!” cried Montgomery, addressing himself to Langham.

“Yes, we will like hell!” said Gilmore. “By rights we ought to take you down to the creek, knock you in the head and heave you in eh, Marsh? That’s about the size of what we ought to do!”

Langham’s face was white and drawn with apprehension, yet he surveyed the ruin the gambler had wrought with something like pity.

“Why, what’s happened to him, Andy?” he asked.

His companion laughed brutally.

“Oh, I punched him up some, I couldn’t keep my hands off him, I only wonder I didn’t kill him ”

“Let me out of this, boss ” whined the handy-man.

“Shut up, you!” said the gambler roughly.

He drew back his hand, but Langham caught his arm.

“Don’t do that, Andy!” he said. “He isn’t in any shape to stand much more of that; and what’s the use, the harm’s done!”

The gambler scowled on his cousin Joe with moody resentment.

“All the same I’ve got a good notion to finish the job!” he said.

“Let me go home, boss!” entreated Montgomery, still addressing himself to Langham. “God’s sake, he pretty near killed me!”

He stood up on shaking legs.

Wretched, abject, his uneasy glance shifted first from one to the other of his patrons, who were now his judges, and for aught he knew would be his executioners as well. The gambler glared back at him with an expression of set ferocity which told him he need expect no mercy from that source; but with Langham it was different; he at least was not wantonly brutal. The sight of physical suffering always distressed him and Joe’s bruised and bloody face was more than he could bear to look at.

“For two cents I’d knock him on the head!” jerked out Gilmore.

“Oh, quit, Andy; let him alone! I want to ask him a question or two,” said Langham.

“You’ll never know from him what he said or didn’t say you’ll learn that from the judge himself,” and Gilmore laughed harshly.

A minute or two passed before Langham could trust himself to speak. When he did, he turned to Montgomery to ask:

“I wish you’d tell me as nearly as you can what you said to my father?”

“I didn’t go there to tell him anything, boss; he just got it out of me. What chance has a slob like me with him?”

“Got what out of you?” questioned Langham in a low voice.

“Well, he didn’t get much, boss,” replied Montgomery, shaking his head.

“But what did you tell him?” insisted Langham.

“I don’t remember, boss, I was full, see and maybe I said too much and then agin maybe I didn’t!”

“I hope you like this, Marsh; it’s the sort of thing I been up against,” said Gilmore.

By way of answer Langham made a weary gesture. The horror of the situation was now a thing beyond fear.

“I’m for sending the drunken loafer to the other side of the continent,” said Gilmore.

“What’s the use of that?” asked Langham dully.

“Every use,” rejoined Gilmore with fresh confidence. “It’s enough, ain’t it, that he’s talked to your father; we can’t take chances on his talking to any one else. There’s the west-bound express; I’m for putting him on that there’s time enough. We can give him a couple of hundred dollars and that will be the end of him, for if he ever shows his face here in Mount Hope, I’ll break every bone in his body. What do you say?”

“Perhaps you are right!” And Langham glanced uncertainly at the handy-man.

“Well, it’s either that, or else I can knock him over the head. Perhaps you had rather do that, it’s more in your line.”

“Boss, you give me the money and let me go now, and I won’t ever come back!” cried Montgomery eagerly. “I been lookin’ for the chance to get clear of this bum town! I’ll stay away, don’t you lose no sleep about that; I ain’t got nothin’ to ever bring me back.”

And on the moment Mr. Montgomery banished from his mind and heart all idea of the pure joys of domestic life. It was as if his old woman had never been. He was sure travel was what he required, and a great deal of it, and all in one direction away from Mount Hope.

No unnecessary time was wasted on Montgomery’s appearance. A wet towel in the not too gentle hands of Mr. Gilmore removed the blood stains from his face, and then he was led forth into the night, the night which so completely swallowed up all trace of him that his old woman and her brood sought his accustomed haunts in vain. Nor was Mr. Moxlow any more successful in his efforts to discover the handy-man’s whereabouts. As for Mount Hope she saw in the mysterious disappearance of the star witness only the devious activities of John North’s friends.