“But you haven’t told me where Ike Dawlin is. He is the only man that shark is afraid of. He told me so. He reckons that Ike is in the East. That makes him bold to do me dirt. I made believe that I know where Ike is. I tried to scare him, but the bluff didn’t go. He is sure that Ike ain’t West. You’re Ike’s regular partner, and you know where he is. I need him. Send for him, and we’ll hold that plug-hatted skyootus here till Ike can whirl in and back him off. Blast him! I could have dropped him if this was ten years ago, even if he was from the East, and wore a plug-hat—and I could have got away with it—but the law sharks have been and tied us all up.”
“You want to think twice before you try gun-play on a man from the East who comes wearing a plug-hat,” advised Pratt. “It’s a pretty good sign that he is from the upper shelves back home, and somebody will be slammed hard if he gets hurt. Keep your hands off a plug-hatter, ‘Dangerflag.’ I don’t believe Ike would dip in, even if he were here. He’s too comfortable just now to play scarecrow for your private interests. He might, if I asked him to, of course. But I don’t see any reason for asking him.”
“I’ll give you a half share in the Breed job,” promised Dragg. “I’ve told you I would if you can gaff that law shark.”
“The Breed job looks like digging into a national bank vault with your thumb-nail,” remarked Mr. Pratt, listlessly. “A lot of law and complications! This re-locating business runs against snags always. I don’t mind telling you that Ike and I find the old game a lot easier when we want to clean up an easy make. I’ll be blamed if we could sell mining stock the last time we went East. What do you know about that? And then we nudged each other and turned around and speared three easy propositions on the good old gold-brick game. You wouldn’t believe they’d still fall—but they do it. It’s simply a case of go hunt in the odd corners for the right man. They’re there, waiting. We peeled five thousand off the back of an old town treasurer—as soft money as we ever pulled. A town treasurer, mind you! We didn’t have to go farther into the bush than that! You can’t expect us to be very enthusiastic about a claim-jumping proposition just now—with plenty in our Dockets. Gimme a match! When you go to fighting a boom city and a railroad crowd, you’ve got your work cut out for you—and just now I’m feeling a lot like loafing.”
Mr. Pratt was very wordy—but he was almighty interesting. Who was hugging the most money—he or Dawlin?
It was plain to me that the town treasurer of Levant was holding in with difficulty. He twisted on his chair and his face was gray with anger and his lips moved. I scowled a warning.
“Well, you can loaf on my job all right if you’ll grab in,” snapped Dragg, temper in his voice. “I’m not asking you to break your neck. You have got the thing sized up all wrong. I don’t expect to own Breed. I’m going to operate on bluff. The Breed boomers and the railroad will come across rather than have the city set back by a hold-up of everything while land titles are being settled. If they’ll hand me cash, I’ll keep still, surrender my claim, and the new lines can be ran and locations filed before anybody wakes up. They’ll see the point all right.”
“And I reckon that the lawyer you hired on the train sees it all right, too,” commented Pratt.
“I don’t know what made me blow myself to him after I had dodged lawyers so long,” mourned Dragg. “But the way he was dressed made him look so mighty solid and reliable and honest—and his eyes were nice and brown! He got me! I tell you I was hypnotized. It wasn’t just because I had budge in me. But he’ll never get to Breed ahead of me. That’ll be his game, of course.”
“Better make your getaway to-night and beat him to it,” suggested Pratt.