Part 42 (1/2)

”'Don't be pokin' jokes at the Gila Desert, my little man,' say Hawk, polite as you please. 'It's h.e.l.l that's here and here it will remain.'

And then we said we were short of water--which we were not--and had he any to spare? But he waved us on with his rifle, never sayin' a word. So we moved down the gulch a quarter of a mile and went into camp. There was ore here, too, but nothin' like what Ben Cameron had.

”Hawk was quiet that night--creepin' about among the rocks, but he didn't say what was on his mind. In the mornin' he started off to talk to Ben Cameron an' I went with him. The man was still sittin' on his rock, with the rifle over his knees--been there all night, I reckon. But he let us come to hailin' distance.

”'Nice claim you got there, pardner,' says Hawk.

”'Is it?' says he.

”'Ain't you afraid of rubbin' some o' that verdigris off onto your pants,' says Hawk.

”'They're my pants,' says Cameron. 'You ain't here for any good. Get out!' And he brings his rifle to his hip. We saw he was scared all right, maybe not so much at what we'd do to him as at sharin' what he'd found.

”'The Gila Desert ain't _all_ yours, is it, pardner? Or maybe you got a mortgage on the earth!' says Hawk, very polite. 'You ain't got no objection to our stakin' alongside of you, have you? Come along, now.

Let's be neighbors. We see what you've got. That's all right. We'll take your leavin's. We've got a right to them.'

”And so after a while of palaverin' with him, he lets us come up and look over his claim. It didn't take any eye at all to see what he'd got.

He wasn't much of a man--Ben Cameron--weak-eyed, rum-dum--poor too. You could see that by his outfit--worse off than we were. Hawk told him we had a lot of friends with money--big money in the East. Maybe we could work it to run a railroad out to tap the whole ridge. That kind of got him and we found he had no friends in this part of the country--so we sat down to grub together, Ben Cameron, like me, unsuspectin' of what was to happen.

”My G.o.d, Nichols, I can see it all like it had happened yesterday. Hawk Kennedy stood up as though to look around and then before I knew what he was about had struck Ben Cameron in the back with his knife.

”It was all over in a minute. Ben Cameron reached for his gun but before his hand got to it he toppled over sideways and lay quiet.

”I started up to my feet but Hawk had me covered and I knew from what had happened that he'd shoot, too.

”'Don't make a fuss,' he says. 'Give me your gun.' I knew he had me to rights and I did what he said. 'Now,' he says, 'it's yours and mine.'”

McGuire made a motion toward the gla.s.s. Peter filled it for him and he drank.

”And then--what happened?” asked Peter quietly.

”Hawk Kennedy had me dead to rights. There was only one thing to do--to make believe I was 'with him.' We buried Ben Cameron, then went down and brought our outfit up, Hawk watchin' me all the while. He'd taken my gun and Ben Cameron's and unloaded them and carried all the ammunition about him. But I didn't know what I was in for. That night he made me sit down while he drew up a paper, torn from an old note book of Ben Cameron's--a partners.h.i.+p agreement, a contract.”

McGuire broke off suddenly and got up, moving nervously to the safe, from one of the drawers of which he took a blue linen envelope and brought forth a paper which he handed to Peter.

”That's the h.e.l.lish thing, Nichols,” he said hoa.r.s.ely. ”That's why I'm afraid of Hawk Kennedy. A lie that he forced me to sign! And there's another paper like this in his possession. Read it, Nichols.”

Peter took the paper in his fingers and looked at it curiously. It was soiled and worn, broken at the edges, written over in lead pencil, but still perfectly legible.

AGREEMENT BETWEEN HAWK KENNEDY AND MIKE McGUIRE

Us two found Ben Cameron on his copper claim in Madre Gulch.

We killed him. Both of us had a hand in it. This mine is Hawk Kennedy's and Mike McGuire's and we are pardners in the same until death us do part, so help us G.o.d.

(Signed) MIKE MCGUIRE.

HAWK KENNEDY.

”He wanted it on me----” McGuire gasped. ”You see? To keep me quiet.”

”I understand,” said Peter. ”This is 'what you've got and what I've got'