“Mexican,” he said, passing it across to the other. “And I guess that’s his country, too. I jumped in to save murder, and nearly broke his wrist to get that knife. He cursed me and mine, and you and yours, in bastard Spanish. We’re going to get trouble with that tough. And Slattery’s not a deal better. Say, did you ever figger just how we stand right here? Do you ever remember Blanche? Oh, yes, I know. We got boys around here who’re mighty glad and pleased to be here. They’re boys we can count on good, in a way. There’s the Doc—Peter Lennox. There’s that boy Lovell Taylor, who tripped up in his bank in Toronto, and has hated himself for it ever since. There’s Jock Smith, who did what he did to save a woman from the husband who reckoned to kill her. There’s that queer soul Fingers, who, if he’s a crook at all, is a merry son-of-a-gun, anyway. Oh, yes. There’s boys who deserve all we can do for them. But there’s others——” He spread out his hands. “Dago Naudin’s the worst of the bunch. And Slattery’s darn bad, too.”
“And what d’you think they can do?”
“Why, every sort of old devilment you ever heard of, from giving this layout away to highway robbery, and murder of one Jim Pryse. And—there’s your sister, Blanche.”
“And what are we doing when that play starts?”
“Why, bucking a game, with the chances ten and more to one with the other feller.”
Pryse shook his white head, and smiled derisively.
“You know, Larry, one of the reasons—only one, mind—I was so almighty glad when you wouldn’t stand for me running this layout without taking a hand in the play yourself was that you’re the sort that looks all round and through a thing, and, having looked that way, makes up his mind and never shifts it. You’ve got a faculty I don’t know a deal about, and I’m glad to have you hand out the things that faculty suggests to you. But I want to say right here you’re seeing things just now I can’t get a glimpse of. There’s going to be no highway robbery and murder, with me for the victim. When it comes to that, I guess I’ve a real good hand to play. And I’ll play it to the limit. But you’re not thinking of Jim Pryse, boy. You’re just about as certain as I am that I can beat the game at a show-down, especially with Larry Manford at my elbow. It’s Blanche you got on your mind.”
Larry nodded, and there was no laughter in his eyes.
“I know,” Jim went on earnestly, “and I think the more of you for it. Blanche is dead game to the bone, and—and she’s worth the love of the best man in the world. And I want to say right here that when you and she fix things to get married you’ll get nothing in the world from me but my best goodwill and any old thing I can do to make things the way you’d have ’em. I allow there’s quite a big chance that we’re taking for Blanche. I saw that from the start—or, anyway, when I saw, and began to realise, the make-up of the crook. Now I’m ready, with you, to persuade her to beat it back to our home city. Do you guess she’ll quit us? Not if we both wear out our knee-caps crawling at her feet. She’s red-hot on this thing, and we’ve got to take the whole darn blame if things should turn amiss for her. You can’t impress me a thing more than I am impressed on this. I’m guessing all the time. And with men like Dago, and Slattery, and this new boy you tell me of, your best warning isn’t any too much. Knowing Blanche the way I know her, we’ve just got to do the best we both know.”
Larry re-lit the cigar he had permitted to go out and finished his drink.