“Do you mean that he’s dead? You said—was her son?” countered Quintell adroitly. But his manner was plainly skeptical, and Lex saw it.
“That is what I’ve been told. It isn’t possible that you’ve heard——”
“Oh, no! Some days ago I happened to run across an old transaction in which his name appeared. There was a sum of money involved—nothing to speak of, though,” lied Quintell glibly.
But Sangerly did not believe him. As he walked out of the Brokers’ Exchange Building, he reviewed the matter in his mind and decided to reopen the subject with Quintell in the morning. Could Mrs. Liggs have deceived him regarding Jerome’s death? Could it really be that she had deliberately lied—Mrs. Liggs, the most upstanding, the best little woman he had ever known? He would not allow himself to believe it. The very thought was a sacrilege. And yet he remembered now that she had never so much as mentioned Jerome’s name, since the day he met her at the store, when, seated in the living room, he had inquired after his boyhood chum. Indeed, now that he recalled that meeting, it did seem as if she had acted strangely and that she had scarcely referred to her son as a bereaved mother would; and if any mother ever loved her son, it was Mrs. Liggs.
Thinking thus, he made his way down the crowded street to the Miners’ Hotel, called for his mail, and arranged with Merriman, the proprietor, to hold his room for him as headquarters for railroad officials who would visit the camp from time to time. As he turned to walk out of the hotel office, a copy of that afternoon’s Searchlight lying on the desk caught his eye. He glanced at it idly, then stared; and his bewilderment grew as he read the double column of black-face type, announcing what was reported to be a rumor that Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome Liggs, prospectors, had made the sensational gold strike of the year. The account, conforming with the style so popular among certain newspapers to swell their sales, was staggering to the eye but hazy as to details, and merely hinted that the new bonanza was situated in a range southwest of camp.
Now, while the coincidental appearance of the name of the man of whom he had just been thinking, dumfounded Lex for the moment, it had a diametrically opposite effect on Jule Quintell when he saw it.
Following Sangerly’s departure, the boss of Geerusalem had settled back in his chair and fallen into moody reflection.
“It just might be that this old fossil, Tinnemaha Pete, entered the son’s name in those claim notices, instead of the mother’s,” he muttered to himself. “Sangerly says he’s dead, and he spoke as if he knew. Well, nothing like being sure.” He reached for a pencil and pad and wrote:
Jerome Liggs, wanted for robbery of Marysville city treasury three years ago, is operating claims on Lemuel Huntington ranch near Geerusalem.
Leaving the note unsigned he read it over grimly and rang for Harrison. That individual came bolting into the room almost instantly, carrying in one outflung hand a copy of the Searchlight and banging the door after him.