Mr. Sandborn was thinking fast, preparing for a certain eventuality. Once before he had taken care of a gunman named Racira in a similar case——
The talk at the table now began, a good deal of serious discussion of ways and means to enlarge the syndicate, and some nervous jokes. On the whole these young men were far from carefree. They lived, breathed and ate crime as it were, and nothing is so luscious to look upon and so indigestible as crime! If, like Gagnon, these others realized how close their end was, they hid it well from themselves and, especially, from Cowboy.
Mr. Sandborn learned a great deal of very great value at that meal, things which would spell the doom of the thing as soon as the G-man could get his information out to the waiting Chief. The little tricks, the petty schemes, and the underlying rot of the system which Cowboy controlled showed clearer and clearer. Here was a system so thorough and so remorseless in its revenge upon squealers that hardly a store or place of business in the entire country was without a gambling device (just within the law, yet drawing money from fools who played the games), inferior manufactured products selling under well-known names, lotteries, “number games” and grosser things. Then there was bank robbery to be run, investment stunts, fake gold mines and other mines—so many forms of illegal gathering of money that the hardened G-man, veteran of war against crime for many years, was appalled at the power and ability of Cowboy Nevada. And what stunned him most was the realization that the man had his competitors, except for a few like Hegarty, helpless or dead, and his ambition was now driving him towards an inevitable goal, a goal so immense that law and order hardly gave such a scheme credence—a plan to overthrow the government of these United States and place Cowboy Nevada, ex-cowpuncher and bad-man, as dictator of the lives and property of the people!
After the meal Cowboy took his new right-hand man all about the place, disclosing the fact that the cove was surrounded by cleverly hidden machine gun emplacements and the cabin was a veritable arsenal and fort with metal-lined walls and secret sally ports.
“About those kids you spoke of, Cowboy,” Gallagher said, “you ain’t really bothered about them, are you? From what I hear that Hogan case was a fluke. The kids happened to stumble into it and the newspapers made more of it than really was there. The Feds got the mobs, and the boys was underfoot most of the time!”
Cowboy regarded Gallagher with a cold eye, slyly.
“Kids can get underfoot till you break your neck, Gallagher! They know too much already! I’ve got men watching the houses now where they live and every harbor for their boat. We’ll have ’em shortly and I aims fer you to take care of them!”
“What you want done?”
“Wait till we get ’em and I’ll tell you!”
So things went till evening, Mr. Sandborn learning all the ramifications of the stupendous system by which Cowboy Nevada was taking toll from the work of honest millions of people in the country and yet, till darkness that day, the man named “Gallagher” did not learn a word from Cowboy about the real source of the vast hoard of money by which the ex-western bad-man had got his start in the big-time rackets. It had taken a big sum to go so fast through the underworld, resources to be spent lavishly.