Part 20 (1/2)

It was still too early for brisk business in chicken-stealing when Philo Gubb climbed to the roof of the kiln and spread himself out there, and he felt that he had time for a few minutes' sleep.

He was tremendously sleepy. Sleep fairly pushed his eyelids down over his eyes, and he put his crooked arm under his head and, after thinking fondly of Syrilla for a few minutes, went to sleep so suddenly that it was like falling off a cliff into dreamland. He dreamed, uneasily, of having been captured by an array of forty chicken thieves, of having been led in triumph before the Supreme Court of the United States, and of having been condemned as a Detective Trust on the charge of acting in restraint of trade--as injuring the Chicken Stealers' a.s.sociation's business--and required to dissolve himself.

The dream was agonizing as he tried one dissolvent after another without success. Turpentine merely dissolved his skin; alcohol had no effect whatever. He imagined himself in a long room in which stood vast rows of vats bearing different labels, and in and out of these he climbed, trying to obey the order of the court, but nothing seemed capable of dissolving him, and he suddenly discovered that he was made of rubber. He seemed to remember that rubber was soluble in benzine, and he started on a tour of the vats, trying to find a benzine vat.

He walked many miles. Sometimes he arose in the air, with ease and grace, and flew a few miles. Finally he found the vat of benzine, immersed himself in it, and began to dissolve calmly and with a blessed sense of having done his duty.

It was then that Philo Gubb entered the dreamless sleep of the utterly weary, and, about the same time, two men slunk under the roof of the brick-kiln and after looking carefully around took seats on the fallen bricks, resting their backs against the partly demolished kiln. They arranged the bricks as comfortably as possible before seating themselves, and when they were seated, one of them drew a whiskey bottle from his pocket and, after taking a good swig, offered it to his partner.

”Nope!” said he. ”I'm going to steer clear of that stuff until I know where I'm at, and you're a fool for not doing the same, Wixy. First thing you know you'll be soused, and if you are, and anything turns up, what'll I do? I got all I can do to take care of you sober.”

”Ah, turn up! What's goin' to turn up 'way out here?” asked Wixy.

”They ain't n.o.body follerin' us anyway. That's just a notion you got.

Your nerves has gone back on you, Sandlot.”

”My nerve is all right, and don't you worry about that,” said Sandlot.

”I've got plenty of nerve so I don't have to brace it up with booze, and you ain't. That's what's the matter with you. You saw that feller as well as I did. Didn't you see him at Bureau?”

”That feller with the white whiskers?”

”Yes, him. And didn't you see him again at Derlingport? Well, what was he follerin' us that way for when he told us at Joliet he was goin'

East?”

”A tramp has as good a right to change his mind as what we have,” said Wixy. ”Didn't we tell him we was goin' East ourselves? Maybe he ain't lookin' for steady company any more than we be. Maybe he come this way to get away from us, like we did to get away from--say!--Sandlot,” he said almost pleadingly, ”you don't really think old White-Whiskers was a-trailin' us, do you? You ain't got a notion he's a detective?”

”How do I know what he is?” asked Sandlot. ”All I know is that when I see a feller like that once, and then again, and he looks like he was tryin' to keep hid from us, I want to shake him off. I know that. And I know I'm goin' to shake him off. And I know that if you get all boozed up, and full of liquor, and can't walk, and that feller shows up, I'm a-goin' to quit you and look out for myself. When a feller steals something, or does any little harmless thing like that, it's different. He can afford to stick to a pal, even if he gets nabbed.

But when it's a case of--”

”Now, don't use that word!” said Wixy angrily. ”It wasn't no more murder than nothing. Was we going to let Chicago Chicken bash our heads in just because we stood up for our rights? Him wantin' a full half just because he put us onto the job! He'd ought to been killed for askin' such a thing.”

”Well, he was, wasn't he?” asked Sandlot. ”You killed him all right.

It was you swung on him with the rock, Wixy, remember that!”

”Tryin' to put it off on me, ain't you!” said Wixy angrily. ”Well, you can't do it. If I hang, you hang. Maybe I did take a rock to him, but you had him strangled to death before I ever hit him.”

”What's the use gabbin' about it?” said Sandlot. ”He's dead, and we made our get-away, and all we got to do is to keep got away. There ain't anybody ever goin' to find him, not where we sunk him in that deep water.”

”Ain't I been sayin' that right along?” asked Wixy. ”Ain't I been tellin' you you was a fool to be scared of an old feller like White-Whiskers? Cuttin' across country this way when we might as well be forty miles more down the Rock Island, travelin' along as nice as you please in a box car.”

”Now, look here!” said Sandlot menacingly. ”I ain't goin' to take no abuse from you, drunk or sober. If you don't like my way, you go back to the railroad and leave me go my own way. I'm goin' on across country until I come to another railroad, I am. And if I come to a river, and I run across a boat, I'm goin' to take that boat and float a ways. When I says n.o.body is goin' to know anything about what we did to the Chicken, over there in Chicago, I mean it. n.o.body is. But didn't Sal know all three of us was goin' out on that job that night?

And when the Chicken don't come back, ain't she goin' to guess something happened to the Chicken?”

”She's goin' to think he made a rich haul, like he did, and that he up and quit her,” said Wixy. ”That's what she'll think.”

”And what if she does?” said Sandlot. ”She and him has been boardin'

with Mother Smith, ain't they? Ain't Mother Smith been handin' the Chicken money when he needed it, because he said he was workin' up this job with us? I bet the Chicken owed Mother Smith a hundred dollars, and when he don't come back, then what? Sal will say she ain't got no money because the Chicken quit her, and Mother Smith will--”