“Nancy says you want my pedigree book. All right—an’ I want some money. She give me a couple hundreds of what you paid her for the colt—an’ a mean price that was paid, mister! I need moren’t two hundred for to make a gitaway, but I can’t touch a doller of all my money, for it’s in the bank down to Frederickton, an’ that’s where they cal’late I’m in jail at. I’ll give you the pedigree book for five hundred dollars. You couldn’t git it for thousands, if it wasn’t that the police is after me to put me back in jail, an’ I need the money the worst way.”
“Dangler, you are hard-boiled. And you’re a fool! Why do you imagine for a moment that I’ll supply you with money to escape with? Anything the law may hand to you will be less than you deserve. If you were to receive your deserts you’d be hanged for a murderer. Hasn’t it occurred to you that I’m much more likely to hand you back to the police than to buy your stud-book?”
The old man smiled. “That would be a hell of a way to treat Joe’s gran’pa!” he said. “Wouldn’t it read rotten in the newspapers? I could tell them reporter lads quite a lot about pedigrees they don’t know yet, ‘Robert Vane, New York sport, weds the great-granddaughter of the thief who stole a horse from his gran’pa. Mr. Vane of New York weds Miss Hinch of Goose Crick. The bride’s gran’pa an’ uncles wasn’t to the weddin’, bein’ in jail for moonshinin’ an’ bootleggin’ an’ murder.’ Say, wouldn’t it read great in the newspapers?”
“Go to it, Dangler! You haven’t got me right.”
The old man eyed him keenly, then produced a notebook bound in oilcloth from an inner pocket. He handed it to Vane. “There’s the record back to the English mare of every foal an’ filly me an’ my pa ever bred of that old strain of blood.”
Vane glanced through the book, and saw that this was probably so.
“It’s yer own,” said Luke Dangler. “But I tell you ag’in you give Nancy a mean price for the bay colt. Do I go back to jail, or don’t I?”
“You may go to hell, for all I care,” replied Vane, calmly.
“Thanky, gran’son-in-law. Well, I’ll be startin’.”
“One moment.” Vane dug into an inner pocket, fingered crisp papers and passed four hundred dollars to the old man.