Hunt was thirty, and his rival was twenty-six.
"And don't you want to see Europe?" asked Edith, who wondered what was in the wind.
"Ah, some day, but not alone," answered Sibley. "I shall never go without a companion."
"You should go with Jack Hunt," said Edith mischievously. "I certainly wonder none of you travel more. Now, Mr. Gardiner down there has been all over the world."
"Ah, poor Gardiner!" said Sibley. "How is it so clever and good-natured a man should be doing what he is?"
And much to Sibley's astonishment, Edith Atherton turned on him with an odd question.
"Well—and what are you doing?"
Perhaps if Gardiner had heard her ask that question, he might have considered that Shanghai Smith need not intervene after all.
But Smith did intervene that night.
When Gawthrop left the theatre he went straight down Market Street to the water-front, and found his way to Shanghai Smith's without any difficulty. He had plenty of pluck, and plenty of ignorance of the real conditions of life in San Francisco. What he heard and what he read about the matter did not touch him; he lived in security in quite another world from the scoundrels at the bottom of Clay Street and the toughs of the "Coast." Life there was a theatrical representation. He sat in the stalls and said, "Poor devils, do they really live that way?" He was Sibley Gawthrop, the son of a big man: he was a power himself: he had no fear, and went into the trap smiling. If he carried in his hip pocket what Westerners call a "gun," it was on account of Western traditions. He showed no caution, though he walked whistling in the middle of the road. He had no chance to use any weapon, and he never saw Smith. He never even saw Billy, Smith's runner, till Billy sand-bagged him on the back of the head. For Smith was not to be found at his house. He was with Gardiner, and they were both waiting till they heard from the runner that Gawthrop was safely disposed of.