Garth pushed his wide-brimmed hat back and scratched his head with a reflective finger.
“Why, I dunno, eggzackly; more like folks, I reckon you’d say. Met up with him yiste’day in Tom and Jerry’s place, and he was leanin’ up ag’inst the bar, a-pourin’ hisself a drink o’ red likker like a man. Wouldn’t buy me a drink, though—no, sir-ree!—not on your sweet life! What he done was to drag me off into a corner and ask me if I didn’t want to go prospectin’; allowed he’d stake me good if I’d premise not to blow it; said he knowed if I’d promise, I’d stick.”
“Well?” queried Bromley.
“I shuck hands on it. He done it, and done it right. After we’d been to the bank, and down to Wolfe Londoner’s place to git Wolfe to ship me a bunch o’ grub to Buena Vista, Phil, he kind-a hung on and says, says he, ‘Damn it, Jim, I’m half a mind to go along with you. When I git to thinkin’ about the clean old hills....’ ‘Come on,’ says I, ‘and we’ll hunt us up another li’l’ bonanza.’ But he says, ‘No, I ain’t a coward, Jim; and that’s what I’d be if I took to the hills now.’ What you reckon he meant by that?”
“Perhaps Phil is the only one who knows the answer to that question, Jim; and if he is, he won’t tell.”
“Speakin’ o’ Phil,” Garth went on, with a glance over his shoulder to see if the train conductor was in sight and ready to give the starting signal; “what-all d’yuh reckon he’s got to do with that frozen-eyed faro-dealer in Clem Bull’s?”
“I don’t know; tell me,” said Bromley, suddenly anxious to have the train starting further delayed.
“It was three-four weeks ago, one night after you’d staked me,” Garth explained. “I’d gone into Bull’s place, aimin’ to buck the tiger one more li’l’ whirl to see if I couldn’t git some o’ my good money back ag’in, and I happen’ to look over my shoulder and see Phil a-follerin’ me. Reckoned he was aimin’ to knock me down and drag me out for a cussed fool, so I dodged him in the crowd and watched to see what he’d do. He was lookin’ for me, all right; I could see that; but when he come to the faro layout, he stopped dead, like he’d been shot—jus’ stood there a-starin’ at that dealer with his eyes a-buggin’ out.”
“And then?” Bromley prompted, hurriedly, because the conductor was now coming down the platform, clearance order in hand.
“Then he kind-a groped his way ’round the table and touched old Fish-eye on the shoulder. Fish-eye, he looks up and says somethin’, quiet-like, and then calls in his mate to take the deal box, and goes off up-stairs with Phil. That’s all I seen, but it got me guessin’.”