"What's happened to cause this great change, Burton?" Clancy asked skeptically.
"Wynn and Katz are trying to beat me out of my share of the fifteen thousand," was the reply. "If I help you, Clancy, maybe, between us, we can beat out the pair of them. What do you say?"
CHAPTER IX.
A SPLIT IN THE GANG.
Clancy had no confidence whatever in Burton.
"I'm willing to hear what you've got to say, Burton," he said, "but whether I believe you or not, is another question."
"You'll believe me, fast enough," was the confident response. "Down the street, a little way, is a place where we can talk."
They walked down the street to a bench. The bench was in an obscure place, and the gloom of the eucalyptus trees surrounded it. Here, after they had seated themselves, Burton began his remarks.
"I've been treated like a dip by Wynn and Katz," said he, "and I'm going to be square with you, Clancy, just to get even with them. When we lifted the fifteen thousand, at the time you were shot, we laid a bee line for Los Angeles. We've been there ever since, up to last Sunday morning. Gerald was bughouse on a gambling proposition, across the Mexican line. He heard of a stockholder he could buy out for fifteen thousand dollars, and that's what set him to working his brother for the money, in the first place.