“I guess now you got the last batch o’ information from His Nibs, Jack?” he hastened to ask, expectantly.
“I sure did, partner,” he was told. “A few scraps of fresh news that’d be likely to interest us had drifted in since I saw Mr. Adkins last, which he passed along to me. I’ll sort these shreds over later, and fix them where they belong. So far as I can see now they corroborate what we’ve already been so strongly believing must be a fact.”
“Which means, I guess, boss, we head west?” ventured Perk, eagerly.
“Into the setting sun—that’s right, Perk.”
“Do we still expect to keep in touch with Mr. Adkins, Jack?”
“Whenever the chance opens up, and we have any important news to send along or want to know certain things, perhaps even to call on him for that bunch of old-time Texas Rangers he said he could turn over to us if we found any use for them.”
“Glory be!” said Perk, plainly excited, “I sure do hope that emergency does bob up, ’cause I’d give my last Mex dollar to glimpse them rearin’, tearin’ ole fighters knockin’ spots outen the bunch o ’lawless ringers Slippery Slim’s gathered around him. Chances are they’d skip out like hot fleas soon as they heard the ol’time battle cry o’ the defenders o’ the Rio Grande in the days when cattle rustlers raided the ranches down Texas way.”
“But we’ve got to remember,” cautioned Jack, “that these chaps are like lean hungry wolves, that never leave the trail of a wounded stag as long as they can crawl along. I’m not fancying we’ve pulled the wool over their eyes so far and that fact was brought to my attention just after I got back from conferring with Mr. Adkins.”
“As how, boss?” queried the curious Perk.
“I don’t just know what influenced me after I’d entered the hotel, to step back and look out again,” explained Jack. “There was the driver of my taxi, the trusty who’d been recommended by the clerk at the desk, talking earnestly with an unknown party and even as I watched I saw him thrust a bank note into the chauffeur’s itching hand, showing that he has been corrupted and is in cohoot with our enemies.”