Dragg was profane in his rejection of this counsel. He stated that Pratt ought to have more sense than to think a project of that order could be settled by a sprinting-match.
“You know what Callas prairie is in March as well as I do,” he sputtered. “It would be a gamble which one of us would get across first if it comes to a race through that ‘’dobe’ mud. It’s all luck whether a stage-coach or a wagon or a cayuse gets through. I’d have gone around and come into Breed from the south, but I thought I’d rather tackle sixteen miles of Callas mud in March than ride six hundred miles in jerk-water trains. See here, Pratt, I’ve got to have time to operate this thing without that shark hanging to me. He’s afraid of Ike. I don’t know what made him tell me so—but he was so mighty sure that Ike was East that he wanted to shoot his mouth off a little so as to aggravate me, I reckon. He has got to be held here in Royal City till I can pull off my job in Breed. I’m not going to have him racing me around over the country, with a chance of his queering the whole proposition. Now come into this thing and help me out, will you?”
Mr. Pratt yawned audibly and allowed that he would not.
“Then get word to Ike Dawlin for me,” pleaded Dragg.
“I don’t think he wants to be bothered,” drawled Pratt, indifferently. “I won’t send for him. That’s final!”
I think it would have been hard telling at that moment who was more disappointed, Mr. Dragg or myself!
I had reckoned specially on Mr. Dawlin. He was boss of the gang, according to his brother’s telling. In all Likelihood he was better thatched with greenbacks than anybody else in the band.
“Furthermore,” stated Mr. Pratt, “I can’t be bothered with your business. I have some of my own to attend to. I’m going to jump the train to-morrow and get back to some place where it’s safe to wear real clothes instead of a diving-suit or overalls.”
And so I was going to lose Mr. Pratt!
To be sure, I had not exactly made up my mind what to do with him if he remained in Royal City; but if he were to start on some kind of a hike and we were obliged to chase him we would betray ourselves and our case, sure as fate. Mr. Pratt was certainly no fool, and would know how to cover a trail the moment he suspected that somebody was chasing him. But I could see no reasonable way of keeping an independent gentleman of his nature in that dump of a Royal City.