“Aw, I suppose he is. I just don’t like the breed.”
Meline walked the length of the room, thinking deeply, while Baldy sat on the edge of the table, indolently smoking a cigarette. Meline halted near him and cleared his throat.
“Kern, I don’t like your attitude,” he said coldly. “You take exceptions to everything. I am at the head of this outfit. This ranch belongs to me. Lee Yung is my partner in everything, and I trust him implicitly. We pay you and your men well for everything you do, and you must remember that we can always hire men to take your places.”
“Is that so?” Baldy laughed and shook his head. “No, yuh can’t, Doc. You’d have to bring strangers down here and teach ’em the border. The revenue officers would watch ’em like hawks. Eventually yuh might put it over, but not for a long time. And in the meantime”—Baldy laughed softly—“we might not be idle. Yuh see, Doc, we know the tricks of the trade.”
Meline scowled heavily, but was forced to admit that Baldy had the better of the argument.
“We can’t afford to quarrel,” declared Meline, anxious to square matters. “We’ll wait for Jack. I wonder if you could get Lee Yung to come back with you.”
“I can try,” agreed Baldy. “We’ve got to figure this thing out some way, and if Lee Yung can plan as well as he can play poker, he’s a wizard.”
Hashknife was just a little worried over the way things had worked out. Cloudy Day’s story spread the news, and Hashknife felt sure that the interested parties would suspect that the contraband was hidden on the Tumbling H.
He was not familiar enough with the stuff even to estimate its value, but felt that it was worth a good many dollars, if handled in the right way. And he was also sure that its original owners would leave no stone unturned to recover it. As far as the cargo itself was concerned he did not think they would be able to uncover it, but he was afraid of what they might do to some of the Tumbling H people.