“I’ve found out, Colin, that this girl has got money comin’ to her from her folks. She doesn’t know about it yet. No one knows about it, except us here. She never belonged to the Skeets and Bushees. She was stolen. This money has been waitin’ for her. Barrett and I are bank-men, and things like this come to our attention when no one else would hear of it. There’s—there’s—” Britt paused and slid a look at Barrett from under an eyebrow cocked inquiringly. Barrett slyly spread ten fingers. “There’s ten thousand dollars comin’ to her in clean cash, Colin. Now, what do you think of that?”
“I think it’s a ratty kind of a story,” said MacLeod, bluntly.
Britt’s temper flared.
“Don’t you accuse me of lyin’,” he roared. “The girl has got the money comin’, I say.”
“Maybe it is comin’,” replied the boss, doggedly; “but has she got any name comin’? Has she got any folks comin’? Has she got anything comin’ except somebody’s hush-money?”
The woodsman’s keen scenting of the trail discomposed the Honorable Pulaski for a moment. But after a husky clearing of his throat he returned to the work in hand.
“Folks, you fool! You can’t dig folks up out of a cemetery. If her folks had been alive they’d have hunted up their girl years ago. They were good folks. You needn’t worry about that. There’s no need now to bother the girl about her folks or the money. She wouldn’t know how to handle it if she had it in her own hands. It needs a man to care for her and the cash. We don’t want a cheap hyena to fool her and get it. You’re the man, Colin. Marry her, and the ten thousand will be put into your fist the day the knot is tied.”
“It sounds snide and I won’t do it,” growled MacLeod, seeming to fairly bristle in his obstinacy. “Not if she was Queen of Sheby.”
“Le’ him go, then!” murmured a voice under the bunk. “Here’s a gen’lum puffick—ick—ly willin’.”
The Honorable Pulaski turned to behold the simpering face of drunken Tommy Eye peering wistfully from his retirement.