“Whom would you recommend as a guide?” he inquired, when the transaction was completed. “After a trip with the person I have engaged, I might find it advisable to take another cicerone.”
“Right good idea,” said Mr. Crowfoot. “Hassayamp’s a good man—I tell you! There’s a feller will be in town next week. I’ll speak to him about it. Harrison, his name is—Mesquite Harrison.”
A slight pallor crossed the face of Tompkins, but he responded gratefully: “By all means. Kindly engage him for me. I shall expect to use him at once, and thank you again for your kindness in the matter.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Sidewinder, and grinned to himself when his caller had departed. There was no longer any doubt that the Professor was what Hassayamp proclaimed him—a natural-born fool, like all bug-hunters. No one else would have handed over his money so readily.
Tompkins walked back to the hotel, and on the doorstep of his own cell found Sagebrush awaiting him. Inside, with the door closed, the desert rat chuckled.
“I reckon Hassayamp is right uppity over losin’ the chance to guide ye, Perfesser,” he announced. “But you done jest right. Hassayamp don’t know nothin’ about the desert.”
“No?” Tompkins lighted his pipe. “He lives here, doesn’t he?”
“Sho! He’s like José Garcia; let a vinegaroon git on him, and he throws a fit. No sir, Hassayamp jest plumb aint a desert man. He knows a sight o’ locations. Him and Sidewinder have sold a hell of a lot, too. Folks buy a place and set awhile, and next time I come in to town, they’re gone. Thar’s cabins all over betwixt yere and the Chuckwallas, where the ground has been sold and deserted. Hassayamp hires fellers to prove up on homestead rights, then buys the homestead off’m ’em and sells it again. He aint no guide, though. All he knows is roads. Git him off’m the road, or show him a t’rant’ler in his blankets, and gosh! Hassayamp is worse’n a tenderfoot. Say, I heard a good one on him this trip!”
Sagebrush chuckled again, spat on the floor, and scratched his whiskers.
“Met up with two fellers in the Salt Pans—ol’ Hardrock Miller from Tucson, and another feller. Hardrock used to be a Mormon ’fore they run him out of Arizona for bein’ too durned Mormonistic. He tells me Hassayamp used to be one too, away over to St. John’s, ’bout fifteen year back. ’Cordin’ to him, Hassayamp vanished real sudden one night, and so did all the money belongin’ to the church, and several head of hosses belongin’ to other folks. May not be true, though. Hardrock Miller saved hisself from bein’ lynched once by tellin’ the truth, and aint never done it since. Afraid his luck’d turn, maybe.”