"A matter of five
minutes' talk, to start with. You see that hand-car house?"
"Perfectly well," Quest assented. "My eyesight is quite normal."
"Get there, then. I'm a yard behind you and my revolver's pointing for the
middle of your back."
Quest looked at it anxiously.
"You have the air, my red friend," he remarked, "of being unaccustomed to
those delicate weapons. Do keep your fingers off the trigger. I will walk
to the hand-car house and talk to you, with pleasure."
He sprang lightly down from the road, crossed the few intervening yards
and stepped into the hand-car house.
Gallagher and his mate followed close behind. Quest paused on the
threshold.
"It's a filthy dirty hole," he remarked. "Can't we have our little chat
out here? Is it money you want?"
Gallagher glanced around. Then with an ugly push of the shoulder he sent
Quest reeling into the shed. His great form blocked the doorway.
"No," he cried fiercely, "it's not money I want this time. Quest, you
brute, you dirty bloodhound! You sent me to the pen for five years--you
with your cursed prying into other people's affairs. Don't you remember
me, eh? Red Gallagher?"
"Of course I do," Quest replied coolly. "You garrotted and robbed an old
man and had the spree of your life. The old man happened to be a friend of
mine, so I took the trouble to see that you paid for it. Well?"
"Five years of hell, that's what I had," the man continued, his eyes
flashing, his face twitching with anger.
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