“But you said something about lung trouble.” Storm lit his own cigarette and held the match to the other’s cigar. “You certainly don’t look it now.”
“Fact, though,” Horton nodded. “Good thing, too, or I would have been a pasty-faced, pretty-mannered bank clerk to this day. It was a question of living out in the open or dying in a hall room, and the West looked good to me. I started in as paymaster in a mining camp, and believe me it was some job for a tenderfoot who had never been nearer to a gun than across the footlights at a melodrama! I learned to travel heeled and be quick on the draw and a few other things; human nature generally. It’s funny the fascination other’s people’s money has for some folks. Never felt that way myself; I guess that’s why I’ve usually had charge of the payroll.”
Storm smiled bitterly, his thoughts reverting to the pseudo Du Chainat and his own money lying now at the bottom of the sea. He had boasted of his affluence to Horton to soothe his wounded self-esteem at the latter’s naïve appraisement of him, but his own predicament had returned with crushing force. Happily, Horton was aware of no lack of response on the part of the host.
“Yes, sir!” he continued. “It’s no credit to me that I’ve run straight, but it kind of gives a fellow a damned good feeling to know that folks realize without question that he’s worthy of trust. Why, right now——!” He broke off and added in a lower tone: “I’m a hell of a fellow to pin medals on myself! I ought to be miles away this minute and going fast. Couldn’t resist a glimpse of the old town, though, and I reckon I can take care of myself. I thought I would just look ’round a bit and then be on my way, but you came along——”
“And you tried to pass me up!” Storm recalled the other’s furtive manner. “What is the game, anyway, Jack? Where are you bound for?”
“A jumping-off place back in the Alleghanies.” Horton grimaced. “Some different from your berth here, isn’t it? You’ve got a nice mahogany roll-top, I suppose, and nothing on your mind but your hat, while I travel with my eyes peeled and my finger on the trigger. See this?”
He reached in his hip pocket and produced a blunt-nosed pistol which winked wickedly in the light.
“Good heavens! What do you carry that thing around with you for?” Storm gasped.
“Looks like business, doesn’t it? Fact is, I’m pay-master now for one of the biggest coal companies in Pennsylvania, and when you’ve got charge of a small fortune every month and an army of Hunkies and general riff-raff know it, it’s just as well to be on the look-out.” He laid the weapon on the table and ground out the stub of his cigar regretfully in the ash-tray. “That was some smoke!”
“Have another,” Storm invited. “I only smoke cigarettes myself, but these cigars are supposed to be pretty good, I believe.”