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popped!”
    It won a laugh from the crowd. As for Waco, his eyes seemed about to pop too. Cash had just recalled a fact that had escaped him until now. It was nothing less than that the label he had so hurriedly destroyed before tossing the package of billheads into the safe was addressed to Otto Hahn, the local butcher. Having forgotten it, he could not have spoken about it to anyone. How, then, did Cash Beaudry come by his information?
    It suddenly dawned on Waco that Blackie Chilton, the deputy, was regarding him narrowly. Blackie had caught the slip. Too late the old man tried to cover up with a dissembling grin. Waco could have kicked himself for his carelessness.
    â€œI’m goin’ along now,” he said presently. “Chalk will have supper waitin’ for me.”
    â€œAll right, Waco,” Beaudry exclaimed. “See you at the inquest in the mornin’.”
    With his hair pulling a little from the four or five drinks he had imbibed, Waco continued on home. A light burned in the kitchen of the little house he occupied. Little Bill and Luther called it home when they were in town. The real head of the establishment, however, was not Waco nor his sons, but Chalk Whipple, a scolding old tyrant who did the cooking and looked after things in general, and who would have risked his life at a moment’s notice for any one of them.
    Like Waco and old Tascosa, Chalk had been a cowboy in his younger days. Years back, he had lost his left leg in a railroad smash-up while on his way to Kansas City with a train-load of beef. He had been stamping around on a wooden substitute ever since and bossing Waco and the boys and managing to keep the little house spotless. He flung open the door now before Waco reached it.
    â€œHere at last, eh?” he scolded. “You can’t keep things hot forever.”
    â€œQuit snappin’ now,” Waco protested. “This is a kinda unusual night.”
    â€œI know; I heard the news,” Chalk retorted as he turned to the stove. “I suppose you’re a hero now. You look out that you ain’t a dead one before the week is out.”
    â€œYeh, I been thinkin’ of that,” Waco sighed as he lowered himself into a chair. “I reckon the Sontags will be out to git me for sure now.”
    â€œIf you don’t know it you’re crazy!” Chalk glared at him. He put a platter of ham and eggs on the table and poured out the coffee, with a cup for himself. “Why didn’t you let ’em have the money? You didn’t stand to lose nothin’.”
    â€œNot so fast there,” Waco argued as he picked up knife and fork. “I figger I had plenty to lose. It was my duty to stay with that money as long as I could. I’ve made it a rule with myself, and I tried to hammer it into the boys too, that when you pass your word—stick to it.”
    He ate a mouthful or two.
    â€œBill and Luther will be here in the mornin’,” he told Chalk. “Beaudry saw ’em on the Cimarron this evenin’.”
    â€œI bet they’ll have somethin’ to say about this.” Chalk shook his head thoughtfully. “I bet they agree with me that you hadn’t ought to done what you did.”
    â€œMebbe. When I saw Grat Sontag shoot that boy down without givin’ him a chance I made up my mind that they wouldn’t get that money unless they killed me too.”
    â€œThat’s what they’ll try now. They’ll be layin’ for yuh.”
    â€œIf that’s the case, I better try to get them before they get me. I ain’t exactly on the shelf yet. I’m packin’ my old guns from now on.”
    The talk turned to Beaudry.
    â€œWhat do you figger he was doin’ down there?” Chalk asked.
    â€œI reckon he was coverin’ their stand and get-away —if you want it straight from the shoulder,” said Waco. “He says he was tipped off that the Sontags was out of