“You’re a wide one all right,” he said thoughtfully. “There’s no gettin’ upsides with you. Give me them quiet, simple sort o’ fellers every time. They got the gas machine beat so far you couldn’t locate him with a forty-foot microscope. Gee!” He chuckled, and turned again to contemplate his companion, much as he would a newly discovered wonder of the world.
But poor Scipio was really becoming distressed. He hoped, merely because the other forced him to hope, by his own evident sincerity. But the charge of shrewdness, of conspiring to keep a secret he had never possessed, worried him.
“I take my oath I don’t know a thing, Bill,” he declared earnestly. “I sure don’t. You’ve got to believe me, because I can’t say more. I seen my claim days back, an’ I hadn’t a color. I ain’t seen it since. That’s fact.”
It was strange to see how readily the disbelief died out of the other’s face. It was almost magical. It was as though his previous expression had been nothing but acting and his fresh attitude the result of studied preparation.
“Well, Zip,” he said seriously, almost dejectedly, “if you put it that way, I sure got to b’lieve you. But it’s queer. It sure is. There’s folks ready to swear ther’s rich gold on your claim, an’ I’ll tell you right here I come along to git in on it. Y’see, I’m a bizness man, an’ I don’t figger to git a crop o’ weeds growin’ around my feet. I sez to myself, I sez, directly I heerd tell, ‘Here’s Zip with an elegant patch o’ pay dirt, an’ here am I with a wad of bills handy, which I’d sure like to turn over some.’ Then I sez––I want you to understand jest how I thought––I sez,‘Mebbe I’ve kind o’ bin useful to Zip. Helped him out some, when he was fixed awkward.’ You see, it ain’t my way to do things for nothing. An’ I do allow I bin useful to you. Well, I thought o’ these things, so I come along right smart to get in on the plum. Sez I, ‘Zip, bein’ under obligation to me some, mebbe he’ll let me buy ha’f share in his claim,’ me handin’ him a thousand dollars. It ’ud be a spot cash deal, an’ me puttin’ in a feller to work––an’ see things right fer me––why, I guess there’d be no chance o’ you gettin’ gay––an’ fakin’ the output. See? I don’t guess you’re on the crook, but in bizness a feller don’t take chances. Y’see I’m pretty bright when it gits to bizness, an’, anyway, I don’t stand fer no play o’ that kind. Get me?”
The gambler’s manner was wholly severe as he explained his proposition, and impressed his views of business. Scipio listened without the slightest umbrage. He saw nothing wrong, nothing unfriendly in the precautions the other had intended to take. As a matter of fact, the one thing that concerned him was the disappointment he must cause him.
“There’s nothing like straight talk, Bill,” he said, cordially. “I allus like straight talk. You kind of know just where you are then. There’s not a doubt you’ve been real good to me,” he went on, with evident feeling, “and I’ll never be able to forget it––never. I tell you right here, if there was anything in the world I could do in return, I’d do it.”
He smiled quaintly and pushed his stubby fingers through his sparse hair in his most helpless manner.
“If there was gold on my claim, I’d let you in all you need, and I wouldn’t want your dollars. Dollars? No, Bill, I don’t want dollars for doing anything for you. I sure don’t. I mean that. Maybe you’ll understand, y’see I’m not a business man––never was.”
The gambler averted his eyes. He could not look into the other’s face so shining with honesty and gratitude.