“You're getting it!” said the other shortly. “But you'd better wait until you get it all before you start spitting your teeth out! Mabbe you've heard of a little interference with the telegraph wires, and a few small jobs pulled off around here where some innocent parties accidentally got croaked? Ah—you have, eh! Well, that's where you come in, Calhoun. We want you—and when we want anything, we get it! See? We knew about that note, and we've been expecting the railroad crowd to wake up some time, and we had you picked out to place our bets on against them. They woke up to-day and began to nose over the line. It ain't likely to do them much good, but there's a chance—and we ain't taking chances. We don't want much from you, Calhoun, just a little thing, and it'll bring you more money than you ever saw in your life before and without you running any risk. All you've got to do is stand for anything in the shape of a splice or tap on the line that they're suspicious of—you can say it's a repair job of your own, see?”
An angry flush was tinging Calhoun's cheeks.
“Is that all?” he burst out passionately. “Well, I'll see you damned first!”
“Will you?” returned the other calmly. “All right, my bucko! It's your funeral. Take your choice. That—or twenty years in the penitentiary. You're in cold on this. Think it over a bit. For instance, how did you come to make the break of wanting Kirschell to indorse the payment on the back of the note, which made him open his safe?”
“How do you know I did?” Calhoun flashed back sharply.
“Mabbe I'm only guessing at it,” said the man nonchalantly; “and mabbe I was back in the outside room when you did. But, say, you don't happen to remember, do you, a little talk you had with a stranger up the line to-day? And how the conversation got around to loan sharks, and how he told about a trick they had of giving receipts that were phony, and how he beat one of them to it by making the shark indorse on the paper itself? Kind of sunk in, and you bit—eh, Calhoun? We don't do things by halves. We happen to need you. And what do you think I made the break of whispering so Kirschell would hear me for?”
The color was ebbing from Calhoun's face.
“It's not proof!” The defiant ring in his voice was forced. “I——”
“It's enough to make Kirschell believe it, and that's all we wanted for a starter. We'll take care of the rest!” stated the man grimly. “What did he say to you?”
Calhoun answered mechanically: