"Through a friend, but forget it."
"Do you know who shot at me?"
"Yes."
"I think I do, too. I think it was the fellow that shot so well with the rifle at the barbecue--what was his name? He was working for Sinclair, and perhaps is yet."
"You mean Seagrue, the Montana cowboy? No, you are wrong. Seagrue is a man-killer, but a square one."
"How do you know?"
"I will tell you sometime--but this was not Seagrue."
"One of Dunning"s men, was it? Stormy Gorman?"
"No, no, a very different sort! Stormy is a wind-bag. The man that is after you is in town at this minute, and he has come to stay until he finishes his job."
"The devil! That"s what makes your eyes so bright, is it? Do you know him?"
"I have seen him. You may see him yourself if you want to."
"I"d like nothing better. When?"
"To-night--in thirty minutes." McCloud closed his desk. There was a rap at the door.
"That must be Kennedy," said Smith. "I haven"t seen him, but I sent word for him to meet me here." The door opened and Kennedy entered the room.
"Sit down, Farrell," said Whispering Smith easily. "_Ve gates?_"
"How"s that?"
"_Wie geht es?_ Don"t pretend you can"t make out my German. He is trying to let on he is not a Dutchman," observed Whispering Smith to McCloud. "You wouldn"t believe it, but I can remember when Farrell wore wooden shoes and lighted his pipe with a candle. He sleeps under a feather-bed yet. Du Sang is in town, Farrell."
"Du Sang!" echoed the tall man with mild interest as he picked up a ruler and, throwing his leg on the edge of the table, looked cheerful.
"How long has Du Sang been in town? Visiting friends or doing business?"
"He is after your superintendent. He has been here since four o"clock, I reckon, and I"ve ridden a hard road to-day to get in in time to talk it over with him. Want to go?"
Kennedy slapped his leg with the ruler. "I always want to go, don"t I?"
"Farrell, if you hadn"t been a railroad man you would have made a great undertaker, do you know that?" Kennedy, slapping his leg, showed his ivory teeth. "You have such an instinct for funerals," added Whispering Smith.
"Now, Mr. Smith! Well, who are we waiting for? I"m ready," said Kennedy, taking out his revolver and examining it.
McCloud put on his new hat and asked if he should take a gun. "You are really accompanying me as my guest, George," explained Whispering Smith reproachfully. "Won"t it be fun to shove this man right under Du Sang"s nose and make him bat his eyes?" he added to Kennedy. "Well, put one in your pocket if you like, George, provided you have one that will go off when sufficiently urged."
McCloud opened the drawer of the table and took from it a revolver.
Whispering Smith reached out his hand for the gun, examined it, and handed it back.
"You don"t like it."
Smith smiled a sickly approbation. "A forty-five gun with a thirty-eight bore, George? A little light for shock; a _little_ light.
A bullet is intended to knock a man down; not necessarily to kill him, but, if possible, to keep him from killing you. Never mind, we all have our fads. Come on!"
At the foot of the stairs Whispering Smith stopped. "Now I don"t know where we shall find this man, but we"ll try the Three Horses." As they started down the street McCloud took the inside of the sidewalk, but Smith dropped behind and brought McCloud into the middle. They failed to find Du Sang at the Three Horses, and leaving started to round up the street. They visited many places, but each was entered in the same way. Kennedy sauntered in first and moved slowly ahead. He was to step aside only in case he saw Du Sang. McCloud in every instance followed him, with Whispering Smith just behind, amiably surprised. They spent an hour in and out of the Front Street resorts, but their search was fruitless.
"You are sure he is in town?" asked Kennedy. The three men stood deliberating in the shadow of a side street.
"Sure!" answered Whispering Smith. "Of course, if he turns the trick he wants to get away quietly. He is lying low. Who is that, Farrell?"
A man pa.s.sing out of the shadow of a shade tree was crossing Fort Street a hundred feet away.
"It looks like our party," whispered Kennedy. "No, stop a bit!" They drew back into the shadow. "That is Du Sang," said Kennedy; "I know his hobble."
CHAPTER XVII
A TEST
Du Sang had the sidewise gait of a wolf, and crossed the street with the choppy walk of the man out of a long saddle. Being both uncertain and quick, he was a man to slip a trail easily. He travelled around the block and disappeared among the many open doors that blazed along Hill Street. Less alert trailers than the two behind him would have been at fault; but when he entered the place he was looking for, Kennedy was so close that Du Sang could have spoken to him had he turned around.
Kennedy pa.s.sed directly ahead. A moment later Whispering Smith put his head inside the door of the joint Du Sang had entered, withdrew it, and, rejoining his companions, spoke in an undertone: "A negro dive; he"s lying low. Now we will keep our regular order. It"s a half-bas.e.m.e.nt, with a bar on the left; c.r.a.p games at the table behind the screen on the right. Kennedy, will you take the rear end of the bar? It covers the whole room and the back door. George, pa.s.s in ahead of me and step just to the left of the slot machine; you"ve got the front door there and everything behind the screen, and I can get close to Du Sang. Look for a thinnish, yellow-faced man with a brown hat and a brown shirt--and pink eyes--shooting c.r.a.ps under this window. I"ll shoot c.r.a.ps with him. Is your heart pumping, George?
Never mind, this is easy! Farrell, you"re first!"
The dive, badly lighted and ventilated, was counted tough among tough places. White men and colored mixed before the bar and about the tables. When Smith stepped around the screen and into the flare of the hanging lamps, Du Sang stood in the small corner below the screened street window. McCloud, though vitally interested in looking at the man that had come to town to kill him, felt his attention continually wandering back to Whispering Smith. The clatter of the rolling dice, the guttural jargon of the negro gamblers, the drift of men to and from the bar, and the clouds of tobacco smoke made a hazy background for the stoop-shouldered man with his gray hat and shabby coat, dust-covered and travel-stained. Industriously licking the broken wrapper of a cheap cigar and rolling it fondly under his forefinger, he was making his way unostentatiously toward Du Sang. Thirty-odd men were in the saloon, but only two knew what the storm centre moving slowly across the room might develop. Kennedy, seeing everything and talking pleasantly with one of the barkeepers, his close-set teeth gleaming twenty feet away, stood at the end of the bar sliding an empty gla.s.s between his hands. Whispering Smith pushed past the on-lookers to get to the end of the table where Du Sang was shooting.
He made no effort to attract Du Sang"s attention, and when the latter looked up he could have pulled the gray hat from the head of the man whose brown eyes were mildly fixed on Du Sang"s dice; they were lying just in front of Smith. Looking indifferently at the intruder, Du Sang reached for the dice: just ahead of his right hand, Whispering Smith"s right hand, the finger-tips extended on the table, rested in front of them; it might have been through accident or it might have been through design. In his left hand Smith held the broken cigar, and without looking at Du Sang he pa.s.sed the wrapper again over the tip of his tongue and slowly across his lips.
Du Sang now looked sharply at him, and Smith looked at his cigar.
Others were playing around the semicircular table--it might mean nothing. Du Sang waited. Smith lifted his right hand from the table and felt in his waistcoat for a match. Du Sang, however, made no effort to take up the dice. He watched Whispering Smith scratch a match on the table, and, either because it failed to light or through design, it was scratched the second time on the table, marking a cross between the two dice.
The meanest negro in the joint would not have stood that, yet Du Sang hesitated. Whispering Smith, mildly surprised, looked up. "h.e.l.lo, Pearline! You shooting here?" He pushed the dice back toward the outlaw. "Shoot again!"
Du Sang, scowling, snapped the dice and threw badly.
"Up jump the devil, is it? Shoot again!" And, pushing back the dice, Smith moved closer to Du Sang. The two men touched arms. Du Sang, threatened in a way wholly new to him, waited like a snake braved by a mysterious enemy. His eyes blinked like a badger"s. He caught up the dice and threw. "Is that the best you can do?" asked Smith. "See here!" He took up the dice. "Shoot with me!" Smith threw the dice up the table toward Du Sang. Once he threw c.r.a.ps, but, reaching directly in front of Du Sang, he picked the dice up and threw eleven. "Shoot with me, Du Sang."
"What"s your game?" snapped Du Sang, with an oath.
"What do you care, if I"ve got the coin? I"ll throw you for twenty-dollar gold pieces."
Du Sang"s eyes glittered. Unable to understand the reason for the affront, he stood like a cat waiting to spring. "This is my game!" he snarled.
"Then play it."
"Look here, what do you want?" he demanded angrily.
Smith stepped closer. "Any game you"ve got. I"ll throw you left-handed, Du Sang." With his right hand he snapped the dice under Du Sang"s nose and looked squarely into his eyes. "Got any Sugar b.u.t.tes money?"