at his throat. The cross was not there. He touched his pockets.
"Ease your hands away from your hip," said the cold voice of the boy,
who had dropped his gun to the ready with a significant finger curled
around the trigger, "or I'll drill you clean."

Pierre obediently raised his hands to the level of his shoulders. The
boy sneered.

"This isn't a hold-up," he explained. "Put 'em down again, but watch
yourself."

The sneer varied to a contemptuous smile.

"I guess you're tame, all right."

"Point that gun another way, will you, son?"

The boy flushed.

"Don't call me son."

"Is this a lockup--a jail?"

"This?"

"What is it, then? The last I remember I was lying in the snow with--"

"I wish to God you'd been let there," said the boy bitterly.

But Pierre, overwhelmed with the endeavor to recollect, rushed on with