change your mind, lemme know. I'll be handy. Here's luck!"

And he was gone as he had entered, with a whish of the swiftly moved door
in the air, and no click of the lock.



CHAPTER 19


The door had hardly closed on him when Terence wanted to run after him
and call him back. There was a thrill still running in his blood since
the time the yegg had leaned so close and said: "That wasn't Black Jack's
way!"

He wanted to know more about Black Jack, and he wanted to hear the story
from the lips of this man. A strange warmth had come over him. It had
seemed for a moment that there was a third impalpable presence in the
room--his father listening. And the thrill of it remained, a ghostly and
yet a real thing.

But he checked his impulse. Let Denver go, and the thought of his father
with him. For the influence of Black Jack, he felt, was quicksand pulling
him down. The very fact that he was his father's son had made him shoot
down one man. Again the shadow of Black Jack had fallen across his path
today and tempted him to crime. How real the temptation had been, Terry
did not know until he was alone. Half of ten thousand dollars would
support him for many a month. One thing was certain. He must let his
father remain simply a name.