“Any more o’ you fellers liable to drop in?” sez he, lookin’ at me. I waved my hand towards Spider, as though he, bein’ the last to arrive, would have the latest news; and Spider sez: “Nope, I reckon not. Leastwise, not so far as I know.”
“Badger-face has come back and taken on with Ty again,” sez I.
“The hell he has!” exclaimed Spider, just as I knew he would.
“Yes,” sez Dixon with an evil chuckle, “he’s come back, and I doubt if he’d feel any sorrow at meetin’ up with some o’ you boys.”
“As far as I remember,” sez ol’ Tank, bulkin’ up as ponderous as a justice o’ the peace, “I don’t recall havin’ asked Badger’s permission to do anything in the past, and I don’t intend to begin now.”
“Well,” sez Dixon, “I don’t mind tellin’ ya that Ty Jones ain’t so sure o’ Badger as he used to be; and nothin’ would suit him so well as to see Badger cut loose and get some o’ you fellers for helpin’ to have him railroaded.”
This surprised me. Dixon didn’t seem a shade worse ’n he’d been when Spider arrived, but he’d sure enough leaked out the news I was after. Ty was suspicious o’ Promotheus, and we’d have to finish our job as soon as possible. I didn’t want to start anything at Skelty’s so I proposed a little friendly poker. The Kid was asleep in the corner; so the seven of us played stud for an hour or so until Tank fell out of his chair, and then we broke up for the night.
Tank was all in; so we had to put him to bed, and the Kid had to be put to bed, also; but Dixon and the other three took a final drink and started back to Ty’s.
[CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN—PROMOTHEUS IN THE TOILS]
Tank weighed like a beef when he got liquor-loose, and it was all me and Spider could do to get him to bed. His legs were like rubber; but he insisted on tellin’ us what he thought about things. He begged us to start back and let him ride, sayin’ that it was only the heat o’ the room, not the drink, which had upset him; but he was in no shape to ride a hay wagon, so we put him to bed.