Fortunately for his purpose, one of the hotel clerks, himself a Southerner, remembered the Dabneys. They had remained but a few days in the hotel; were now, so the clerk believed, camping in one of the tent colonies out on California or Stout Streets somewhere between Twentieth and Twenty-third. Yes, Captain Dabney had been in pretty bad shape, but it was to be assumed that he was still living. The clerk had been sufficiently interested to keep track of the obituary notices in the newspapers, and the Dabney name had not appeared in any of them. Inquiry among the tenters would probably enable Philip to find them.
Reproaching himself for his prolonged negligence, Philip set out to extend his search to the tent colonies. It was after he had reached the more sparsely built-up district, and was crossing a vacant square beyond the better-lighted streets, that a slender figure, seemingly materializing out of the ground at his feet, rose up to confront him, a pistol was thrust into his face, and he heard the familiar formula: “Hands up—and be quick about it!”
It is probably a fact that the element of shocked surprise, no less than the natural instinct of self-preservation, accounts for the easy success of the majority of hold-ups. Sudden impulse automatically prompts obedience, and the chance of making any resistance is lost. But impulsiveness was an inconsequent part of Philip’s equipment. Quite coolly measuring his chances, and well assured that he had a considerable advantage in avoirdupois, he knocked the threatening weapon aside and closed in a quick grapple with the highwayman. He was not greatly surprised when he found that his antagonist, though slightly built, was as wiry and supple as a trained acrobat; but in the clinching struggle it was weight that counted, and when the brief wrestling match ended in a fall, the hold-up man was disarmed and spread-eagled on the ground and Philip was sitting on him.
When he could get his breath the vanquished one laughed.
“Made a complete, beautiful and finished fizzle of it, d-didn’t I?” he gasped. “Let me tell you, my friend, it isn’t half so easy as it is made to appear in the yellow-back novels.”
“What the devil do you mean—trying to hold me up with a gun?” Philip demanded angrily.
“Why—if you must know, I meant to rob you; to take and appropriate to my own base uses that which I have not, and which you presumably have. Not having had the practice which makes perfect, I seem to have fallen down. Would you mind sitting a little farther back on me? I could breathe much better if you would.”
Philip got up and picked up the dropped weapon.
“I suppose I ought to shoot you with your own gun,” he snapped; and the reply to that was another chuckling laugh.
“You couldn’t, you know,” said the highwayman, sitting up. “It’s perfectly harmless—empty, as you may see for yourself if you’ll break it. You were quite safe in ignoring it.”