Bill smiled.
“Sure I will, if you’ve nothing to ask, nothing to comment on that story.”
“It’ll keep. Maybe I’ll have a whole big heap to talk when you’re through with your—proposition.”
Raymes nodded. He, too, was smiling. He spread out his hands.
“You want to quit. You want to sell out and pass on where you can make some use of the life that’s creaking with rust in every joint. Well, it’s easy. Don’t quit. Don’t sell out. Take a trip north where there’s a big ‘strike’ waiting on a feller with a nose for gold. Where there’s a mighty big mystery to be cleaned up, and the hard justice of this iron country to be handed out to a crowd of devils who’ve battened on its wealth and are sucking the life out of its vitals. Is it good enough? You’ll be able to forget the dollars you’re forced to count daily in this city. You’ll lose sight of the Feldman crowd and the brothels they set going to hand them a stake. It’s the open, where God’s pure air’s blowing. Where there’s room for you to move, and breathe, and live, and where you can hit mighty hard when the mood takes you, and you can feel good all over that you’re doing something for the country you like best. This thing’s my job, but I haven’t the troops or time to fix it the way I should. I’m so crowded to the square inch I don’t know how to breathe right. I haven’t any sort of right offering you this thing. I know that, and I guess you’re wise it’s so. But it don’t matter. I do offer it to you, Bill, and it’s because I know you. I offer it you because you’re the feller to put it through, and because you’re a feller we can’t afford to lose out of our territory. Well?”
The police officer’s manner had become seriously earnest, and the other remained silent for some moments buried in deep thought. George Raymes waited. He watched for the passing of the gold man’s deep consideration. He understood that the thing he required of him was no light task and looked like involving a tremendous sacrifice.
At last Bill’s cigar stump was flung into the cuspidor, and the policeman realised that a decision had been arrived at. The gold man looked up, and a whimsical smile lit his clear eyes.
“If I was crazy enough to take a holt on this thing I don’t just see—I’ve no authority. I’m no policeman. I’m just a bum civilian without police training. You boys are red-hot on the trail of crime. It’s your job, and I guess there’s no folk in the world better at it. But—”
“You’ve forgotten,” Raymes broke in. “There’s the trail of a gold ‘strike’ in this. And Bill Wilder’s got the whole country beaten a mile on a trail of that nature. Make that ‘strike’ an’ I guess you’ll locate the rest in the process. I’m asking for that from you.”
Wilder laughed. It was the clear, ringing laugh of the youth he really was. It was a laugh of appreciation at the simple tactics of his friend. It was a laugh of rising enthusiasm.