But Winton was not to be brought to his senses so easily.

"Run away from that swine? Not if I know it. Let him take it into
court if he wants to. I'll be there, too."

The beaten one was up now and apparently looking for an officer.

"I'm takin' ye all to witness," he rasped. "I was on'y askin' him to
cash up what he lost to me las' night, and he jumps me. But I'll stick
him if there's any law in this camp."

Now all this time Winton had been holding the unopened telegram
crumpled in his fist, but when Biggin pushed him out of the circle and
thrust him up to the clerk's desk, he bethought him to read the
message. It was Virginia's warning, signed by Adams, and a single
glance at the closing sentence was enough to cool him suddenly.

"Pay the bill, Biggin, and join me in the billiard-room, quick!" he
whispered, pressing money into the town-marshal's hand and losing
himself in the crowd. And when Biggin had obeyed his instructions:
"Now for a back way out of this, if there is one. We'll have to take
to the hills till train time."

They found a way through the bar and out into a side street leading
abruptly up to the spruce-clad hills behind the town. Biggin held his
peace until they were safe from immediate danger of pursuit. Then his
curiosity got the better of him.

"Didn't take you more'n a week to change your mind about pullin' it
off with that tinhorn scrapper in the courts, did it?"