CHAPTER XXIV.
"SAM'L HALL" But with the stage set and the curtain ready to rise on the farce, the audience did not arrive until the shadow of the evening blotted the windows of the office where big Lawlor waited impatiently, rehearsing his part; but when the lamp had been lighted, as though that were a signal for which the tenderfoot had waited, came a knock at the door of the room, and then it was jerked open and the head of one of the cowpunchers was inserted.
"He's coming!" The head disappeared; the door slammed.

Lawlor stretched both arms wide, shifted his belt, loosened his gun in the holster for the fiftieth time, and exhaled a long breath.

Once more the door jerked open, and this time it was the head and sullen face of Nash, enlivened now by a peculiarly unpleasant smile.
"He's here!" As the door closed the grim realization came to Lawlor that he could not face the tenderfoot--his staring eyes and his pallor would betray him even if the jerking of his hands did not.

He swung about in the comfortable chair, seized a book and whisking it open bowed his head to read.

All that he saw was a dance of irregular black lines: voices sounded through the hall outside.
"Sure, he'll see you," Calamity Ben was saying.