“Just ninety-seven dollars here, Rob!” announced Andy.
“Yes, that’s right,” declared Jared, cringing before Rob’s look, “and I earned every cent of that roll by honest days’ labor, every cent of it. I thought I needed just a little more to see me through all the way East. I was told it’d take about—say a hundred and ten clear. But I c’n wait now till I get my next wages. I was a silly fool to think to rob my old pals of the days in Hampton.”
“You never said truer words than those, Jared,” Rob told him, plainly, but with a feeling that nothing the other declared would be believed under oath, for truth and Jared Applegate had never been friends.
“But, Rob, I hope now you ain’t a-goin’ to keep any of my cash roll, or hand it over to the manager of the hotel. I’ve been working here quite some time now, and they treat me white so I’d hate to get bounced when I’m so near makin’ up the amount I need. It’s all clean money, Rob, you believe me, don’t you? Look at my hands and see how calloused they are? That’s a pretty good sign, I take it, that I ain’t been layin’ around, or playin’ cards like I used to.”
He had certainly been doing some sort of hard labor, though Rob was rather inclined to believe Jared must have been working in the mines with pick and shovel, and had only come to the city when driven out of the camp because of some crooked doings.
“You shouldn’t judge everybody by your own standard, Jared,” he told the other. “None of us could be hired to take a single cent of yours, no matter how you got the money, which is no affair of ours. Give it back to him, Andy; and I guess you’ve searched enough to satisfy us he is carrying away nothing that belongs to us.”
Jared clutched the money as might a miser, and hastened to stow it away again.
“And you mean me to go, don’t you, Rob? I take it you’re too high-minded to want to have revenge on a poor devil who’s down in the world, even if he has done you dirt in the past. Say I c’n skip out, won’t you, Rob? I’m a changed boy, I tell you; and you’ll never be sorry you acted white with me!”
“Open the door, Tubby,” said Rob, and the fat scout did so, though with apparent reluctance, for Tubby did not have the slightest faith in Jared’s wonderful reformation, and thought he ought to be punished in some way.
“Now go, and I only hope we never set eyes on you again, Jared Applegate. Only for the fact that you’ve already brought enough trouble on the heads of your folks at home I’d be in favor of handing you over to the police to deal with. Hurry up and leave before I change my mind.”