“It worked?” Mason asked.
“Worked!” Barkler said. “I’ll say it worked... Heh, heh, heh... A guy walked past out in the street, and Alden turned loose his slingshot, and darned if he didn’t hit the guy right in the leg. The guy was sore for a minute, but he looked up and seen Alden in the window of the sanitarium. Alden made signs to him, so he picked up the note and read it and waved his hand to show that he understood. Guess he thought Alden was a nut all right, but he figured it wouldn’t do no harm to let me know where he was.”
Mason said, “Didn’t you know that Phyllis was bringing the matter up in court?”
Barkler’s laugh was like the sound of a wind rustling dry leaves. “What the hell does Alden and me want with court?” he asked. “Courts be damned! I strapped on the old persuader, and went down to get him out — figured I might have to get rough. But shucks, they was dead simple. I could have stole them blind.”
Mason grinned. “You knew Leeds up in the Klondike, didn’t you?”
“Tanana,” Barkler corrected.
“All the same, isn’t it?” Mason asked.
“Nope,” Barkler said shortly.
“Must have been a wild country,” Mason ventured.
“It was. A man that couldn’t take care of himself had no business being up in that country.”