Billy rose and shuffled into his clothes sullenly enough.
"And where am I to skip to?"
"To Portland," said Smith; "the Mendocino leaves in the mornin' for Crescent City and Astoria, don't she? Well, then, go with her and lie up with Grant or Sullivan in Portland till I let you know the coast is clear. And here's twenty dollars: go easy with it."
He sighed to part with the money.
"I'd sooner go down to Los Angeles," grunted Billy.
But Smith explained to him with urgent and explosive blasphemy that he was to get into another State in order to complicate legal matters.
"You've the brains of a Flathead Indian, you have," said Smith, as he turned Billy into the street on his way to find the Mendocino. "What's the use of havin' law if you don't use it?"
And in the morning, when Smith heard that ten runners at least had been urgently invited to interview Mr. Peter Cartwright, he was glad to be able to declare that Billy was not on hand.
"He's gone East to see his old man," he said drily. "And as his father is a millionaire and lives in the Fifth Avenue, N' York, he couldn't afford to disregard his dyin' desire to see him."
"You are a daisy, Smith," said the police officer who had come for Billy. "Between you and me, what have you done with him?"