"Keep it, then," said Sandy brutally, "until we get settled here! Come up to the hotel to-night."
"And ye won't talk mines to nobody else first?"
"Nary a soul," returned Mackintavers. "Hey, Hobbs! You goin' to come out o' that place?"
Bill Hobbs scratched his head and considered his position.
"If you guys will drag the corpse out of the way," and he gestured toward the flivver. "I'm goin' to give this joint the once over, Mac. Join you over to the hotel later. Gee! You ought to see this joint, Mac! Where did Doc go to?"
Willing hands removed the flivver from the doorway. Deadoak, being rebuffed by Sandy, remained to scrape an acquaintance with Bill Hobbs and elucidate the kidnapping of Murray; while Piute Tomkins, taking in hand his guest, performed the same office to Mackintavers, en route to the hotel.
That evening, Deadoak sidled cautiously to Mackintavers's room, knocked, and slid inside as the door opened.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, breathing more freely. "Ding my dogs, but I had a stiff time eludin' that pirootin' son of a gun, Piute Tomkins! He suspects somethin'."
"So do I," said Mackintavers, grimly eyeing his guest. He did not know that Deadoak had just come from a long and involved conference with Piute, wherein property had changed hands and other arrangements had been made; he did not need to know all this, however, to realize that his visitor had not come for philanthropic purposes.
Deadoak, blissfully unconscious that he was introducing a new game and a cold deck to the gentleman who had invented that game and patented the cold deck, sank into a chair and blinked solemnly at the lamp.