Part 27 (1/2)
”You got me sized up right. I'm worse than a h.e.l.ldodger, a whole lot worse.” The words were playful, but the tone was sardonic.
Bull grunted.
”You tell me, will you, just where it was you met this Bill Smith-Jack Harpe feller, and what it was he did? There's a company in it, too.
What company is it--the Northern Pacific?”
”Ah-h, you got a gall, you have,” sneered Bull, savagely. ”Think you'll make something out of Harpe yore own self, huh?”
”That is my idea,” admitted Racey.
”Well, you got a gall, tha.s.sall I gotta say.”
”You forget you've got a gall, too, when you try to bushwhack me,”
Racey reminded him. ”I'm trying to play even for that.”
”Try away.”
”You seem to make it hard for me kind of,” grinned Racey.
”Of course I'd enjoy makin' it easy for you all I could,” observed Bull with sarcasm.
”I dunno as I'd go so far as to say _that_,” was the Dawson comment.
”But maybe it's possible to persuade you to tell me what you know.”
”It ain't.”
”Suppose I decided to leave you here.”
”You won't.” Confidently.
”Why not?”
”Because you ain't shootin' a unarmed man.”
”Yet you think I'm the boy to kick one that's down.”
”Sometimes I change my mind,” said Bull with a harsh laugh.
”You laugh as loud as that again,” said Racey, irritably, ”and you'll change somethin' besides yore mind. Don't be too trusting a jake, Bull, not too trusting. I might surprise you yet. About that information now--I want it.”
”If anybody's gonna make money out of Harpe I am.” Thus Bull, stubbornly.
”I ain't aimin' to make _money_ out of Harpe. What I'm figuring to make out of him is somethin' else again.”
”Whatsa use of lying thataway? Don't--”
”That'll be about all,” interrupted Racey. ”You've called me a liar enough for one night. I ain't got _all_ kinds of patience. You going to tell me what I want to know?”