“Hello, Allen!” he said.
The man nodded.
“What’s eatin’ you?” he inquired.
“I’ve been thinking over that proposition of yours,” explained Evans.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking maybe I might swing it; but are you sure it’s safe. How do I know you won’t double-cross me?”
“You don’t know,” replied the other. “All you know is that I got enough on you to send you to San Quentin. You wouldn’t get nothin’ worse if you handled the rest of it, an’ you stand to clean up between twelve and fifteen thousand bucks on the deal. You needn’t worry about me double-crossin’ you. What good would it do me? I ain’t got nothin’ against you, kid. If you don’t double-cross me I won’t double-cross you; but look out for that cracker-fed dude your sister’s goin’ to hitch to. If he ever butts in on this I’ll croak him an’ send you to San Quentin, if I swing for it. Do you get me?”
Evans nodded.
“I’ll go in on it,” he said, “because I need the money; but don’t you bother Custer Pennington—get that straight. I’d go to San Quentin and I’d swing myself before I’d stand for that. Another thing, and then we’ll drop that line of chatter—you couldn’t send me to San Quentin or anywhere else. I bought a few bottles of hootch from you, and there isn’t any judge or jury going to send me to San Quentin for that.”
“You don’t know what you done,” said Allen, with a grin. “There’s a thousand cases of bonded whisky hid back there in the hills, an’ you engineered the whole deal at this end. Maybe you didn’t have nothin’ to do with stealin’ it from a government bonded warehouse in New York; but you must’a’ knowed all about it, an’ it was you that hired me and the other three to smuggle it off the ship and into the hills.”