“I’ll tell you this much: s’pose you could go to Grillage and say, ‘Look-ee here, old sport; I’m wise to somethin’ that’ll knock all the money out o’ this railroad job o’ yours, and then some; you keep this here Vallory hook out o’ me, and I’ll keep mine out o’ you.’ How does that hit you?”
Again Plegg saw the vanishing smile.
“Where did you get all this flim-flam dope, Simmy?”
“Some of it I’ve had a good little spell. The rest of it I got to-night listenin’ under the windows of Vallory’s bunk car.”
“Who was doing the talking?”
“Three of ’em, first and last: young Altman and Vallory, and then Vallory and that gun-totin’ under-boss o’ his’n, Plegg.”
“Supposing I say that I’m not in the market; then what?”
The lop-shouldered man struggled up in his chair and spat his reply out viciously. “Then, by cripes, I’ll go to Grillage himself! He’ll buy!”
“I see,” said Dargin softly. “You’ll sell this thing to me or to Grillage, whichever one of us bids the highest. Is that it?”
“You’re shoutin’ now. I’m tired o’ hidin’ out and dodgin’ Hank Bullock in these dam’ mountains. Some o’ these days he’s goin’ to hike up this-away and get the drop on me; and then”—the misshapen man made a gesture pantomiming the clicking of handcuffs upon wrists. “I want to skip down yonder to Honduras, ’r some o’ them places where they never heard o’ me ’r the croakin’ business in Gunnison. And you lissen to me, Jack; I’m goin’ to have a wad big enough to stake me when I get there, and don’t you forget it!”