“I don’t know who you are or where you came from,” said Mackenzie, “but you’re not a crook, anyhow. That money’s yours; you got it out of him as 164 beautiful as I ever saw a man skinned in my day. But if you don’t want to tip it off, that’s your business.”
“It was a chance,” said the doctor, recalling a night beside the river and the words of Agnes when she spoke of that theme, “and I had the sense and the courage for once to take it.”
In the café-tent where they had taken their supper they sat with a stew of canned oysters between them, and made the division of the money which the lost die had won. Mackenzie would accept no more than the two hundred dollars which he had lost on Shanklin’s game, together with the five hundred and ten advanced in the hope of regaining it.
It was near midnight when they parted, Mackenzie to seek his lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him to his rest.
Sitting there on the side of his bed, he explored the pockets of Hun Shanklin’s coat. There were a number of business cards, advertising various concerns in Comanche, which Shanklin had used for recording his memoranda; two telegrams, and a printed page of paper, folded into small space. There was nothing more. 165
The paper was an extra edition of The Chieftain, such as the doctor had grown sadly familiar with on the day of the drawing. With a return of the heartsickness which he had felt that day, he unfolded it far enough to see the date. It was the day of the drawing. He dropped the half-folded sheet to the floor and took up the telegrams.
One, dated the day before, was from Meander. The other was evidently Shanklin’s reply, which perhaps had not been filed, or perhaps was a copy. The first read:
Can close with Peterson if you are sure he will be Number One.
Be certain on numbers N. W. quar. 6-12-33. Repeat.
Jerry.
The reply which Shanklin had written and perhaps sent, preserving a copy in his crafty, cautious way, was:
Peterson is Number One. N. W. quarter 6-12-33 is right.