“It is private business,” explained Young Dan, smiling; “and these gentlemen don’t know any more about it or me than I do about them. I never so much as set eyes on any one of them in my life until five minutes ago. What I have to say is for your private hearing, if you are really an officer of the law.”
“Step in,” said the tall man to Young Dan; and to the others he said drily, “Thanks, boys, for escortin’ the young stranger to the right place.” Then he closed the door in the hotel-keeper’s face. He led the way into a small room opening off the narrow hall—an untidy, stale cigar-scented room poorly illumined by an oil lamp with a green paper shade.
“Dump your outfit in the corner and sit down,” he invited.
Young Dan obeyed and removed his cap and mitts and outer coat. The deputy-sheriff sat down in his own arm-chair beside the untidy table and removed the shade from the lamp so that the light reached his visitor’s face. For several seconds he gazed keenly but pleasantly at Young Dan.
“I’ve seen you before, somewheres or other,” he said. “Seems to me I have known you pretty well, sometime or other. Who are you an’ where from?”
Young Dan answered the questions briefly but clearly.
“You remind me of someone I know well,” said Mr. Wallace. “But it isn’t yerself, for I never saw nor heard of you before. A full-grown man—and a smart one. You speak like him—whoever he is.”
“Bill Tangler, maybe? You’d know him, I guess. He’s my uncle.”
“Bill Tangler it is! Your uncle, hey? Well, son, you’ve got a smart uncle. More than that, he’s able; an’ better still, he’s white. If Bill Tangler’s your uncle we don’t need any more introduction—so fire away.”
Young Dan told briefly of his partnership with old Andy Mace, and produced from an inner pocket the letter from his uncle containing the suggestion of the venture and the partnership and the offer of camp and outfit. Archie Wallace chuckled over the letter. Then the trapper told of his encounters with Jim Conley, of the rebaited trap, and of the night Conley went off his course in the woods with a cargo of gin inside and out. He produced and exhibited the piece of paper upon which Mr. Luke Watt had figured out Jim Conley’s bill. The deputy-sheriff studied that exhibit very intently and slapped his hand on his thigh.