“I ain’t very flush right now,” said the colonel cunningly. It was not the first time that he and Bully had worked together to good advantage. “Still, I dunno as I’d mind placin’ a little on the Clippers, seeing’s they belong to me.”
“Ah, you’re a true sport!” cried Smith heartily. “Oh, by the way—I have some friends here by the name of McQuade. Perhaps you know where Mr. McQuade lives, colonel?”
“Well, yes. He lives in the cemetery, right now, Smith. He’s been dead quite a spell.”
“Dead! You don’t say!” The stranger was visibly perturbed. “Poor McQuade! He never had much head for business. I suppose he died poor?”
“He died owin’ me two thousand,” said Colonel Carson grimly. “I got a mortgage on his place over by the river, right in my safe. I’m goin’ to foreclose, too.”
“Well, well! Did he leave any family?”
“Son an’ widder,” jerked the other. “Son’s ketchin’ on Merriwell’s team.”
John Smith glanced around. The town constable stood at a little distance, and the stranger pointed at him.
“That’s the constable, isn’t it, Carson? Well, let’s bring him into your office, and if we can make a little bet, he could be stakeholder. Eh?”
Colonel Carson grinned to himself, and agreed with some show of hesitation. With the constable following, they entered the bank and sat down in the owner’s private room.