The Long Chance Part 30

"How" said Harley P., and paused beside the other's seat. "Mr. T. Morgan Carey, if I ain't mistaken?"

"The same" replied Carey in his dry, precise tones. "And you are--Mr.--Mr.--Mr. Hammage."

"Hennage" corrected the gambler.

"I beg your pardon. Mr. Hennage. Quite so. Pray be seated, Mr. Hennage.

You're the very man I wanted to see."

He moved over and made room for Mr. Hennage beside him. The gambler sat down and sighed.

"Hot, ain't it?" he remarked, rather inanely.

"Rather. By the way, Mr. Hennage, have you, by any chance, seen that young man for whom I was inquiring on the day I first had the pleasure of making your acquaintance? His name is McGraw--Robert McGraw. You will recollect that I left with you one of my cards, with the request that you give it to McGraw, should you meet him, and inform him that I desired to communicate with him."

"Yes" replied Mr. Hennage calmly. "I met him one day in San Pasqual an'

gave him your card."

"You gave him my registered letter, also?"

So Carey had been talking with Miss Pickett again! Mr. Hennage nodded.

"Tell me, Mr. Hennage" purred Carey. "Why did the man, McGraw, send you to the post-office with an order for that registered letter?"

"Oh, he was in a little trouble at the time an' didn't care to show in public" lied Mr. Hennage glibly.

"I perceive. I believe you mentioned something about his reputation as a hard citizen when I first spoke to you about him."

"Tougher'n a bob-cat" Mr. Hennage a.s.sured him, for no earthly reason except a desire to be perverse and not contradict his former statements.

"Hu-u-m-m! I presume you know where Mr. McGraw may be found at present.

Is he liable to communicate with you?"

Mr. Hennage was on guard. "Well, I ain't sayin' nothin'" he replied evasively. It was in his mind to discover, if possible, the details of the business which this man of vast emprise could have with a penniless desert rat like Bob McGraw.

"Is this McGraw a friend of yours, Mr. Hennage?" pursued Carey.

"Well," the gambler fenced, "I've loaned him money."

"Ever get it back?" Carey smiled a thin sword-fish smile.

"Certainly. Why do you ask?"

"You consider McGraw honest?"

"Sure shot--between friends. Yes."

Carey turned his head slowly and gazed at the gambler in mean triumph.

"Well, I'm sorry I can't agree with you" he said. "Your friend McGraw robbed me of fifteen hundred dollars on the San Pasqual-Keeler stage a few days ago."

The fact that Carey had been a victim of Bob McGraw's felonious activities was news to Mr. Hennage, but he would not permit Carey to suspect it.

"Yes" he replied calmly, "I heard he'd taken to road work."

"He held up the stage" Carey repeated, in the flat tone of finality which the foreman of a jury might have employed when repeating the verbal formula: "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty, as charged."

"Then you recognized McGraw" ventured the gambler.

"The moment I saw him."

"That's funny" echoed Harley P. "I gathered from what you told me in San Pasqual that you two'd never met up, an' they tell me that durin' the hold-up McGraw was behind a wall an' wearin' a mask. You're sure some recognizer, Mr. Carey."

"We had met prior to the hold-up and subsequent to my conversation with you in San Pasqual."

"Still the bet goes as she lays" repeated Mr. Hennage. "For a near-sighted gent you're sure some recognizer."

"I recognized his voice."

Mr. Hennage was silent for a minute. Carey continued.

"If the sheriff gets him, I'll see to it that McGraw doesn't rob another stage for some time to come."

Still Mr. Hennage was silent. He was digesting the conversation, and this much he gathered:

There was some mysterious business afoot wherein Carey and Bob McGraw were jointly interested, and they had met and quarreled over it, as evidenced by T. Morgan Carey's all too apparent animosity. Mr. Hennage had a haunting suspicion that Carey's animus did not arise from the fact that McGraw had robbed him of fifteen hundred dollars. He felt that there was a deeper, more vital reason than that. All of his days Mr.

Hennage had lived close to the primitive; he was a shrewd judge of human impulses and it had been his experience that men quarrel over two things--women and money. The possible hypothesis of a woman, in the suspected quarrel between Bob McGraw and T. Morgan Carey, Harley P.

dismissed as untenable. Remained then, only money--and Bob McGraw had no money. His finances were at so low an ebb as to be beneath the notice of such a palpable commercial wolf as T. Morgan Carey; consequently, and in the final a.n.a.lysis, Mr. Hennage concluded that Bob McGraw possessed something which Carey coveted. Whether his spiteful att.i.tude toward the unfortunate Bob arose from this, or the loss of the fifteen hundred dollars, Mr. Hennage now purposed discovering. He leaned toward Carey confidentially and lowered his voice.

"Say, looky-here, Mr. Carey. This boy, McGraw, is a friend o' mine. A little wild? Yes. But what young feller now-a-days ain't? I know he's robbed you o' fifteen hundred dollars, an' I'm sorry for that, but I can fix you up all right. I'm goin' to get into communication with our young friend before long, if he ain't beefed by the sheriff first, or captured alive--but it's ten to one they get him, an' he'll be brought to trial.

Well, now, here's what I'm drivin' at. If the boy's nabbed, an' you'll agree to sorter, as the feller says, tangle the woof o' memory an' refuse to swear that you recognize the said defendant as the hereinbefore mentioned stage-robber, I'll see that you get your fifteen hundred back. This is his first serious job, Mr. Carey, an' I wish you'd go easy on him. He ain't really bad."

T. Morgan Carey pounded the back of the seat in front of him.

"Not for fifty thousand dollars" he said. "The suggestion is preposterous. The man is a menace to society and it is my duty to testify against him if he is apprehended."

"Then it ain't a question with you o' money back an' no questions asked?"

Carey shook his head emphatically. "It's principle" he said.

Mr. Hennage appeared chopfallen. In reality he was amused. Never before had Mr. Hennage met a man to whom the abandonment of such "principle"

would have been impossible under the terms suggested. Clearly there was something wrong here. Mr. Hennage had met men to whom vengeance would have been cheap at fifty thousand, but principle--the gambler shook his head. He had lived long enough to learn that principle is a marketable commodity, and he was not deceived in T. Morgan Carey's att.i.tude of civic righteousness.

"Well, it's too bad you won't listen to reason, Mr. Carey" he said regretfully. "I thought you might be willin' to go easy on the young feller. It's too durned bad," and he rose abruptly and returned to his own seat. Carey resumed the perusal of his newspaper. He was not anxious to continue the conversation, and he believed he had Mr. Hennage intimidated, and for reasons of his own he was desirous of permitting the gambler to think matters over.

Mr. Hennage proceeded at once to think matters over. "Now, I wonder what that kid-glove crook has against the boy!" he mused. "I can see right off that Bob has an ace coppered, an' this sweet-scented burglar would like to see Bob tucked away in the calaboose while he goes huntin' for the ace. What in Sam Hill can them two fellers have between them? Here's Bob, just a plain young desert rat, a-dreamin' an' a-romancin' over the country, while this Carey is a solid citizen. He's president o' the Inyo Land & Irrigation Company, according to his card. Bob ain't got no money--Carey has a carload of it. Bob ain't got no water--Carey's in the irrigation business. Bob ain't got no real estate, 'ceptin' what he acc.u.mulates on his person wanderin' around, and Carey's got land--"

Mr. Hennage emitted a low soft whistle through the slit between two of his gold teeth.

Land! That was it. Land! And government land at that!