The Furnace of Gold Part 22

"I'm goin' to," announced his visitor. He took a chair, pulled out a giant cigar, and lighting it up smoked like a pile of burning leaves.

"You seem to be pretty well fixed," he added, taking a huge black pistol from his pocket and laying it before him on the table. "Looks like money was easy."

"I ain't busted," admitted the gambler. "Have a drink?"

"Not till we finish." The lumberman settled in his chair. "That was the way you got me before--and you ain't goin' to come it again."

McCoppet waited for his visitor to open. Trimmer was not in a hurry.

He eyed the man across the table calmly, his small, s.h.i.+fting optics dully gleaming.

Presently he said; "Cayuse is here in camp."

Cayuse was the half-breed Piute Indian whose company McCoppet had avoided. Partially educated, wholly reverted to his Indian ways and tribal brethren, Cayuse was a singular mixture of the savage, plus civilized outlooks and ethical standards that made him a dangerous man--not only a law unto himself, as many Indians are, but also a strange interpreter of the law, both civilized and aboriginal.

McCoppet had surmised what was coming.

"Yes--I noticed he was here."

"Know what he come fer?" asked the lumberman. "Onto his game?"

"You came here to tell me. Deal the cards."

Trimmer puffed great lungfuls of the reek from his weed and took his revolver in hand.

"Opal," said he, enjoying his moment of vantage, "you done me up for a clean one thousand bucks, a year ago--while I was drunk--and I've been laying to git you ever since."

McCoppet was unmoved.

"Well, here I am."

"You bet! here you are--and here you're goin' to hang out till we fix things _right_!" The lumberman banged his gun barrel on the table hard enough to make a dent. "That's why Cayuse is here, too. Mrs. Cayuse is dead."

The gambler nodded coldly, and Trimmer went on.

"She kicked the bucket havin' a kid which wasn't Cayuse's--too darn white fer even him--and Cayuse is on the war trail fer that father."

McCoppet threw away his chewed cigar and replaced it with a fresh one.

He nodded as before.

"Cayuse is on that I know who the father was," resumed the visitor. "I told him to come here to Goldite and I'd give up the name."

He began to consume his cigar once more by inches and watched the effect of his words. There was no visible effect. McCoppet had never been calmer in his life--outwardly. Inwardly he had never felt Dearer to death, and his own kind of fright was upon him.

"Well," he said, "your aces look good to me. What do you want--how much?"

"I ought to hand you over to Cayuse--good riddance to the whole country," answered Trimmer, with rare perspicacity of judgment. "You bet you're goin' to pay."

"If you want your thousand back, why don't you say so?" inquired the gambler quietly. "I'll make it fifteen hundred. That's pretty good interest, I reckon."

"Your reckoner's run down," Trimmer a.s.sured him. "I want ten thousand dollars to steer Cayuse away."

McCoppet slowly shook his head. "You ain't a hog, Larry, you're a Rockyfeller. Five thousand, cash on the nail, if you show me you can steer Cayuse so far off the trail he'll never get on it again."

Five thousand dollars was a great deal of money to Trimmer. Ten thousand was far in excess of his real expectations. But he saw that his power was large. He was brutally frank.

"Nope, can't do it, Opal, not even fer a friend," and he grinned.

"I've got you in the door and I'm goin' to jamb you hard. Five thousand ain't enough."

Things had been going against the gambler for nearly an hour. He had been acutely alarmed by the presence of Cayuse in the camp. His mind, like a ferret in a trap, was seeking wildly for a loophole of advantage. Light came in upon him suddenly, with a thought of Culver, by whom, subconsciously, he was worried.

"How do you mean to handle the half-breed?" he inquired by way of preparing his ground. "You've promised to cough up a name."

Trimmer scratched his head with the end of his pistol.

"I guess I could tell him I was off--don't know the father after all."

"Sounds like a kid's excuse," commented McCoppet. "Like as not he'd take it out of you."

The likelihood was so strong that Trimmer visibly paled.

"I've got to give him somebody's name," he agreed with alacrity. "Has anyone died around here recent?"

"Yes," answered McCoppet with ready mendacity.

"Culver, who used to do surveying."

"Who?" asked Trimmer. "Don't know him."

McCoppet leaned across the table.

"Yes you do. He stopped you once from stealing--from picking up a lot of timber land. Remember?"

Trimmer was interested. His vindictive attributes were aroused.

"Was that the cuss? I never seen him. Do you think Cayuse would know who he was?--and believe it--the yarn?"

"Cayuse was once his chain-man." McCoppet was tremendously excited, though apparently as cold as ice, as he swiftly thought out the niceties of his own and fate's arrangements. "Cayuse's wife once worked for Mrs. Culver, cooking and was.h.i.+ng."

"Say, anybody'd swaller that," reflected the lumberman aloud. "But five thousand dollars ain't enough."

"I'll make it seven thousand five hundred--that's an even split,"

agreed the gambler. He thought he foresaw a means whereby he could save this amount from the funds that Bostwick would furnish. He rose from his seat. "A thousand down, right now--the balance when Cayuse is gone, leaving me safe forever. You to give him the name right now."

Trimmer stood up, quenched the light on the stub of his cigar, and chewed up the b.u.t.t with evident enjoyment.

"All right," he answered. "Shake."

Ten minutes later he had found Cayuse, delivered up the name agreed upon, and was busy spending his money acquiring a load of fiery drink.