Pete looked up, turning his cruel eyes with a malicious grin on O’Brien.
“Guess there’s more than us boys goin’ to see him if there’s trouble busy. Say, I don’t guess there’s a heap of folk ’ud fancy Fyles sittin’ around their winter stoves in this city.”
“Or summer stoves either,” chuckled Holy Dick, craning round so that his gray hair revealed the dirty collar on his soft shirt.
Stormy Longton glanced over quickly, while the kid shuffled the cards.
“Who cares a curse for red-coats?” he snorted fiercely, his keen, scarred face flushing violently, his steel-gray eyes shining like silver tinsel. “If Fyles and his boys butt in there’ll be a dandy bunch of lead flying around Rocky Springs. Maybe it won’t drop from the sky neither. There’s fools who reckon when it comes to shooting that fair play’s a jewel. Wal, when I’m up against police butters-in, or any vermin like that, I leave my jewelry right home.”
O’Brien chuckled voicelessly.
“Gas,” he cried, in his cutting way. “Hot air, an’—gas. I tell you right here, Fyles and his crowd have got crooks beat to death in this country. I’ll tell you more, it’s only because this country’s so mighty wide and big, crooks have got any chance of dodging the penitentiary at all. I tell you, you folks ain’t got an eye open at all, if you can’t see how things are. If I was handing advice, I’d say to crooks, quit your ways an’ run straight awhiles, if you don’t fancy a striped suit. The red-coats are jest runnin’ this country through a sieve, and when they’re done they’ll grab the odd rock, which are the crooks, and hide ’em away a few years. You can’t beat ’em, and Fyles is the daddy of the outfit. No, sir, crooks are beat—beat to death.”
Then his eyes shot a furtive look in Charlie’s direction.
“The sharps ain’t in such bad case,” he went on. “I’d say it’s the sharps are worrying the p’lice about now. The prohibition law has got ’em plumb on edge. The other things are dead easy to ’em. You see, a feller shoots up another and they’re after him, red hot on his trail. They’ll get him sure—in the end, because he’s wanted at any time or place. It’s different running whisky. They got to get the fellow in the act o’ running it. They can’t touch him five minutes after he’s cached it safe—not if they know he’s run it. If they find his cache they can spill the liquor, but still they can’t touch him. That’s where the sharps ha’ got Fyles beat.”
He chuckled sardonically.