“I heard that Jim Duff had returned to town,” began the young man. The speaker was Clarence Farnsworth, the foolish young easterner who had been sadly fleeced by the gambler.
“Yes; Duff came back,” said Mr. Hawkins, quietly.
“Where is he?” asked Farnsworth. “I must leave in the morning, and I owe Duff seven hundred dollars. I want to pay it to him.”
“Money you lost gambling with Duff?” questioned Hawkins.
“It's a debt of honor that I owe Mr. Duff,” Farnsworth replied, flushing considerably.
“Son, take one little hint from me,” continued Hawkins. “No money ever lost to a gambler in card playing is a debt of honor. It's merely the liability of a chump and a fool. No gambler ever uses any real honor. Men of honor work for the money that they need or want. Duff had a smooth way of talking, an agreeable manner with his profitable victims, but he never had a shred of honor. It isn't possible to be a gambler and a man of honor. If you've seven hundred dollars that you lost to Duff at cards, put it in your pocket and get out of Paloma as soon as you can. Duff won't need the money, anyway. He's down at the Mansion House, dying of a bullet wound that he got through his last piece of trickery. I hate to speak harshly of a dying man, but I'd like to see you get a grain or two of common sense into your head, boy.”
Again Farnsworth flushed, but three or four seasoned Arizona men who stood near by added their advice, in line with that of Mr. Hawkins. Clarence soon edged away.
An hour after daylight Jim Duff died. Dr. Furniss and the others who were with the gambler at the last were unable to state that Duff had offered any expression of regret for his evil life, or for his last wicked acts.
George Ashby was sent to an asylum and his property sold for his benefit. After a year he was discharged as cured. He has vanished, swallowed up in some other community, and nothing more has been heard of him.
Trailed by detectives of a fire insurance company, Frank Danes was soon caught and brought back to Arizona. He was fairly convicted of having set the old Cactus House on fire, though he could not be persuaded to admit himself an agent of the Colthwaite Company. Fred Ransom, the other agent, is believed to be still in the employ of the Colthwaite Company's “gloom department.”