Part 10 (2/2)
McCloud did not meet the host, Lance Dunning, that day, nor since the day of the barbecue had Du Sang or Sinclair seen Whispering Smith until the night Du Sang spotted him near the wheel in the Three Horses. Du Sang at once drew out of his game and left the room.
Sinclair in the meantime had undertaken a quarrelsome interview with Whispering Smith.
”I supposed you knew I was here,” said Smith to him amiably. ”Of course I don't travel in a private car or carry a bill-board on my back, but I haven't been hiding.”
”The last time we talked,” returned Sinclair, measuring words carefully, ”you were going to stay out of the mountains.”
”I should have been glad to, Murray. Affairs are in such shape on the division now that somebody had to come, so they sent for me.”
The two men were sitting at a table. Whispering Smith was cutting and leisurely mixing a pack of cards.
”Well, so far as I'm concerned, I'm out of it,” Sinclair went on after a pause, ”but, however that may be, if you're back here looking for trouble there's no reason, I guess, why you can't find it.”
”That's not it. I'm not here looking for trouble; I'm here to fix this thing up. What do you want?”
”Not a thing.”
”I'm willing to do anything fair and right,” declared Whispering Smith, raising his voice a little above the hum of the rooms.
”Fair and right is an old song.”
”And a good one to sing in this country just now. I'll do anything I can to adjust any grievance, Murray. What do you want?”
Sinclair for a moment was silent, and his answer made plain his unwillingness to speak at all. ”There never would have been a grievance if I'd been treated like a white man.” His eyes burned sullenly. ”I've been treated like a dog.”
”That is not it.”
”That is it,” declared Sinclair savagely, ”and they'll find it's it.”
”Murray, I want to say only this--only this to make things clear.
Bucks feels that he's been treated worse than a dog.”
”Then let him put me back where I belong.”
”It's a little late for that, Murray; a _little_ late,” said Smith gently. ”Shouldn't you rather take good money and get off the division? Mind you, I say good money, Murray--and peace.”
Sinclair answered without the slightest hesitation: ”Not while that man McCloud is here.”
Whispering Smith smiled. ”I've got no authority to kill McCloud.”
”There are plenty of men in the mountains that don't need any.”
”But let's start fair,” urged Whispering Smith softly. He leaned forward with one finger extended in confidence. ”Don't let us have any misunderstanding on the start. Let McCloud alone. If he is killed--now I'm speaking fair and open and making no threats, but I know how it will come out--there will be nothing but killing here for six months.
We will make just that memorandum on McCloud. Now about the main question. Every sensible man in the world wants something.”
”I know men that have been going a long time without what they wanted.”
Smith flushed and nodded. ”You needn't have said that, but no matter.
Every sensible man wants something Murray. This is a big country.
There's a World's Fair running somewhere all the time in it. Why not travel a little? What do you want?”
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