"Looks like that!" said Deering. "I want a razor and a bath; then I want a suit of clothes, the biggest standard size. I doubt if the clerk and bell-boys saw a bushman come up, but if they did so, I'd sooner they didn't see him come down."
"I can fix you," said the other, smiling. "All the same, I expect you must get a barber to finish the job."
When Deering used a glass he admitted that his friend's remark was justified, but so long as he looked like a wild man from the woods, to recline, wrapped in a white sheet, in a barber's front window had obvious drawbacks. As a rule, a North American barber carries on his occupation as publicly as possible. He got a bath, and when he returned to his friend's room Neilson gave him a cigar and they began to talk.
"Very well," said Neilson, "I can get the money for you and will soon fix up the other matters. I have sent for some clothes and booked your room. But you look as if you'd hit some adventures in the woods, and I'd rather like to know——"
"Perhaps you noted something in the newspapers about a game-warden's getting shot?"
"The Colonist printed a short paragraph; I imagined the police edited the story. Old man Salter knows his job, although the shooting was on the Royal North-West's ground. Anyhow, the tale left you to guess. But were you in it?"
"Sure thing," said Deering, dryly. "I'll tell you——"
When he finished his narrative, Neilson knitted his brows. He was frankly an adventurer, but he had his code and Deering trusted the fellow. Moreover, Neilson knew men, and particularly men who lived by exploiting others' weaknesses.
"I'm not a hunter. We'll cut out the shooting and concentrate on the gang," he said. "I want to get Stannard right. His occupation's ours?"
"Something like ours," Deering agreed. "We play a straight game, because we know a straight game pays; I've spotted Stannard using a crook's cheap trick. But he doesn't bet high at cards. His line's financing extravagant young suckers."