In front of the trader's store was a platform littered with merchandise, buckets, rope, tubs, etc., things that slopped over from the crowded shelves within. Even on bargain-counter days, if such evidences of a high civilization ever reached this emporium, business was desultory, but the trader made up in percentage of profit what he lacked in volume of trade. It was late in the afternoon, business apparently at a standstill, "nuthin' doin." Cadger, the proprietor, was leaning casually out of the window, and, though neither looked at the other, was talking to the agent who stood on the platform just outside. The merchant must have had another name, but no one had ever heard him called anything but Cadger. His father and mother—it was difficult to believe that he had ever had a father and mother, and inconceivable that he had ever been a child, much less a baby—if, I say, he ever had parents, they probably called him something endearing or at least human, but in a country where almost no one escaped a nickname, he remained just Cadger. In appearance he suggested negation, the excluded middle. He seemed to have been plucked too soon and faded early. He had a half-hearted nose, a discouraged chin, and his faded little eyes blinked weakly. There is such a thing as carrying insignificance to excess. In personality he was so unobtrusive as to appear not to be around, unless one stepped on him. It is said, however, that any one so careless remembered it, if he lived to remember anything; for, strange to say, Cadger was supposed to be a man-killer. He wasn't at all the usual bad man type, looking for an audience and a chance to show off. He was a plain business man, and all he had ever asked, like other business men, was just "to be let alone." There was a vague rumor that he had once been in business in the Black Hills, where he had gone into competition with the express companies in the carrying of gold, and after a more or less successful career had found it safer to retire to the slower and less exciting pursuits of a post-trader's store. At all events, he was a quiet, modest man that no one cared to investigate or annoy, and no one had successfully questioned his commercial methods. He took no pains to remedy his natural deficiencies, for he had found it useful to look like a fool.
"I think we can do business with Calthorpe," said the agent, looking off into space.
"Can't make him out," said Cadger in a tone as vacant as his face. Then after quite a pause which he filled with smoke from a filthy pipe. "Suppose you know all about him, but you ain't never give it away to me."
The agent swung a contemptuous look in the direction of the other.
"He's out here, isn't he? Along with the rest of us. No one knows the exact particulars about you before you came here."
The other overlooked the obvious inference and did not trouble to reply in kind, but murmured gently, "Takin' chances."
"Big Bill applied for the job for him," continued the agent. "All Bill knows about him, or all he'll tell, is that he brought a letter of introduction to him from his old boss, the earl of something or other, who used to own the Red Butte Ranch. Of course he isn't out here because he wants to be here any more than we are. A couple of years ago I read a story in one of the Sunday papers about an English lord who was ambassador to Spain and got mixed up with a Spanish dancer and raised a family by her. The son, when he got around to it, tried to prove he was legitimate. Maybe Calthorpe's story isn't any worse than that. Maybe it is. He looks like he was half Spanish. Of course he's had English bringing up, has the remnants of an accent with him, though he's trying to drop it. What do you suppose would induce a man who was an educated gentleman to come out to this damned waste and accept the wages of a chief of Indian police? Well, to my humble mind, nothing but crime, my Christian friend."
"Kin you hold him?"
"Well, we can't frighten him. We got to make it worth his while, that's all."
"Will he stay bought?" persisted the business man.