"Buck up, buck up, partner. We'll get him yet!"
Now it flashed into the mind of Sinclair that it must be a pair of crooked gamblers working on some fat purse in the hotel, come out here to arrange plans because they failed to extract the bank roll as quickly as they desired. Otherwise, there could be no meaning to this talk of "getting" someone.
"But between you and me," grumbled the big man, "it looked from the first like a bum game, Fatty."
"That's the trouble with you, Red. You ain't got any patience. How does a cat catch a mouse? By sitting down and waiting—maybe three hours. And the hungrier she gets, the longer she'll wait and the stiller she'll sit. A man could take a good lesson out'n that."
"You always got a pile of fancy words," protested the big man.
Sinclair saw Fatty put his hand on the shoulder of his companion. Plainly he was the dominant force of the two, in spite of his lack of height.
"Red, as sure as you're born, they's something going to happen this here night. My scars is itching, Red, and that means something."
Again the mind of Sinclair flashed back to something familiar. A man who prophesied by the itching of his scars. But once more the danger of the moment made his mind a blank to all else.
"What scars?" asked Red.
"Scratches I got when I was a kid," flashed the fat man. "That's all." "Oh," chuckled Red, plainly unconvinced. "Well, we'll play the game a little longer."