“Are you lost?” Gary asked rather noncommittally. “You’re pretty well off the beaten track, you know. This trail ends right here.”
“Well, that suits me. Right here is where I headed for. Might I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Why, I suppose you might.” Now that Gary had taken a good look at James Blaine Hawkins, he did not like him at all.
James Blaine Hawkins waited a reasonable time for Gary to say what he was doing in Johnnywater Cañon. But Gary did not say. He was rolling a cigarette with maddening precision and a nonchalant manner that was in itself an affront; or so James Blaine Hawkins chose to consider it.
“Well, damn it, what are you doing here?” he blurted arrogantly. James Blaine Hawkins was of the physical type which is frequently called beefy. His red face darkened and seemed to swell.
“I? Why, I’m stopping here,” drawled Gary. “What are you doing here?”
James Blaine Hawkins leaned against the side of the car, folded his arms and spat into the dust. Then he laughed.
“I’m here to stay!” he announced somewhat pompously. “I don’t reckon it’s any of your business, but I’ve got a half interest in this place—better ’n a half interest. I got what you might call a straight two thirds interest in everything. Two thirds and found.” He laughed again. “So, I guess mebby I got a right to know why you’re stopping here.”
Not for nothing was Gary Marshall an actor. When he learned to portray emotion before the camera, he also learned to conceal emotion. Not even Patricia in her most suspicious mood could have discovered how astonished, how utterly taken aback Gary was at that moment.
He lighted his cigarette, blew out the match and flipped it from him. He took three long, luxurious inhalations and studied James Blaine Hawkins more carefully from under the deep-fringed eyelashes that had helped to earn him a living. Patricia, he perceived, had been attacked by another “wonderful” idea. Though it seemed rather incredible that even the impulsive Patricia should have failed to read aright a man so true to type as was James Blaine Hawkins.