"Private business?"
"Strictly ongtree-new," grinned Phipps evilly, "I don't mind telling you, Warren, I'm fed up with the way I been kicked around by Blacky Jordan. I'm supposed to be his right hand man, but I'm one of those right hands that never knows what the left hand's doing. I run all the risks, like going into civilization for supplies and taking care of that space-cop, for instance, and Jordan gets all the gravy. Not only that, but he'd rat on me in a minute if it would put one bean in his soup. Like he just done a few minutes ago; talking about making you his chief partner when I've been his buddy and done his dirty work for years.
"Well, I'm sick of it, see? And I'm pulling out. What I want to know is—if I take care of Blacky Jordan, can you and me make a dicker like the one he propositioned you on?"
VI
Chip stared at the man with a sort of sick distaste in his mouth. He did not like Blacky Jordan. The outlaw was coarse, brutal, bestial. But it had to be said to Jordan's credit that his villainy was at least open and aboveboard; not such treacherous, skulking infamy as this.
Chip said contemptuously, "Aren't you taking an awful chance, Phipps? Suppose I were to tell Jordan about this proposition of yours?"
Phipps' leer was the more vicious because it marred only the visible half of his face.
"I ain't taking no chance, Warren. 'Cause if you're agreeable, I'll set the wheels moving. I've got my followers, too. There won't be no Blacky Jordan to worry about. If you ain't agreeable, well—" He patted the Moeller holster at his side with a sinister sort of affection—"I can always tell Blacky you tried to escape, you know."
Chip Warren could restrain himself no longer. For fifteen minutes he had held his ever-fiery emotions in check. Now his lips spat venomous loathing. "Why, you—you rat!" he growled. "You filthy, contemptible cur! I'd as soon form a partnership with a Venusian marsh-snake! Oh! So that's your game!"