James Blaine Hawkins was busy cranking his car. If he heard Gary speak he paid no attention. He got a sputter from the engine, rushed to the wheel and coaxed it with spark and gas-lever, straddled in over the side and went careening away down the trail to the open desert beyond.
Faith came inquisitively to the door, and Gary picked her up in his hands and held her, purring, against his face while he stroked her mottled back.
“I think you’ve saved little Pat Connolly a darned lot of trouble,” he murmured into the cat’s ear. “Thrashing that bird wouldn’t have had half the effect.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“THERE’S MYSTERY HERE——”
“Dear Pat:—
“In God’s name, what were you thinking of when you sent this fellow Hawkins over here with a five years’ contract? Couldn’t you see the man’s a crook? Are the lawyers in Los Angeles all dead, that you couldn’t call one up on the ’phone and ask a question or two about letting places on shares? Of course you’d want to write the contract yourself. Perfect Patricia is the little lady that invented brains! If she doesn’t know all there is to know in the world, she’ll go as far as she does know and fake the rest.
“Permit me to congratulate you, Miss Connolly, upon the artistic manner in which you handed over to James Blaine Hawkins the best imitation of a legacy that I ever saw! Of course you’d have to invent a new way of having your pocket picked. Two thirds and found! My word!
“Any ordinary, peanut-headed man would have given the usual one half of increase in stock, and the old stock made good at the end of the term of contract. And not found, Pat! No one but you would ever dream of doing a thing like that. And he says you agreed to buy his gas and oil. Pat, if ever a girl needed some one to look after her, you’re that small person. And he bragged about it—the dirty whelp. Laughed at the way you met his terms and thought they were all right!
“He never came nearer a licking in his life and missed it, Pat. But I had another scheme, and I didn’t want to gum it up by letting on I knew you. I had to sit pretty and let him brag, and register admiration for the rotter. He’s gone now—it worked. But he’ll come back—to-morrow, when the sun is shining and his blood thaws out again. I may have to lick him yet. If he were a white man, with the intelligence of a hen turkey, I could play the joker and make him lay down his hand. But I’ll probably have to take a few falls out of him before I can convince him he’s whipped from the start.
“You know, Pat, you’ve made an ungodly mess of things. In the whole sorry assortment of blunders you did just one thing that gives me a chance to save you. Before I left the city I made it a point to find out what kind of power runs a Power of Attorney, anyway. I happen to know a darned good lawyer, and I had a talk with him.