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"Just to show you I'm not a piker," he cried recklessly, "I'll bet you twenty-five dollars I can beat your Skeeter with my Smoky horse that I rode in here. Is it a go?" Jeff's jaw dropped a little, with surprise. "What fer horse is this here Smoky horse of yourn?" he wanted to know. Bud winked at the group, which cackled gleeful!, "I love the sport of kings," he said.
Game as he was, too it's a scandal among snakes lemme tell you what he done. First night in camp the boys started to initiate him in the leather breeches degree. Ross Hargis busted him one swipe with his chaparreras, and what do you reckon the poor child did? Got up, the little skeeter, and licked Ross. Licked Ross Hargis. Licked him good. Hit him plenty and everywhere and hard.
Old Luddy could be made to leave New York, and, once away, with the Skeeter and his gang robbed of incentive to pay any further attention to him, the stones could be secretly returned to the old man. And it would to the public, to the police, be just another of the Gray Seal's crimes that was all! Jimmie Dale had reached old Luddy's door. The Gray Seal?
"I'll swan if this ain't the belly-achiness bunch I ever seen! How about it, Jake? Did Skeeter do his durndest, or didn't he? "Shore, he did!" Jake testified warmly. "I'da beat, too, if he hadn't stumbled right at the last. Didn't yuh see him purty near go down? And wasn't he within six inches of beatin'? I leave it to the crowd!"
"Next Sunday, if it's a clear day and the sign is right, I might run against Boise if it's worth my while. Say, Jeff, seeing you're playing hard luck, I won't lick you for what you called me. And just to show my heart's right, I'll lend you Skeeter to ride home. Or if you want to buy him back, you can have him for sixty dollars or such a matter.
"Gnat!" said Barkins sharply, "you're a miserably-impudent little scrub of a skeeter, and presume upon your size to say insolent things to your elders." "No, I don't," I said shortly. "Yes, you do, sir. You called me a fool just now." "I didn't." "If you contradict me, I'll punch your miserable little head, sir. No, I won't, I'll make Blacksmith do it; his fists are a size smaller than mine."
In an instant Skeeter seized upon the clenched fist, and was wrenching it open, when a third party entered the fray. "The little one got it!" cried Miss Lady indignantly; "he got it first! Give it to him this minute!" "I be damned if I do!" shouted Skeeter, roused to fury by the combat. "I'll be damned if you don't," said Miss Lady, equally determined.
The fingers crept inside and touched the knob and lock there was no key within. The whispering still went on but it seemed like a screaming of vultures now in Jimmie Dale's ears, as the words came to him. "Aw, say, Skeeter, dis high-brow stunt gives me de pip! Me fer goin' in dere an' croakin' de geezer reg'lar, widout de frills. Who's to know?
The big one wasn't in it! He kep' tryin' to stop 'em, buttin' in with his whip." "But how do you know all this, Chick?" cried Miss Lady almost fiercely; "did the Sheeley boy tell you?" "Skeeter? Shucks, he don't know nothin' 'ceptin' what his paw tole him." "But who told you?" Chick closed his lips and shook his head: "He'll set the cop on me." "Who?" "Skeeter's paw. Fer smashin' the slot machine.
"Oh, my friend doesn't shoot, anyway," says Mr. Robert. "Ain't nothin' else for him to do on High Bar," says the native, "less'n he wants to collect skeeter bites." When we got close enough to see the island I begun to suspicion I'd missed out on my hunch, for there ain't a soul in sight. We could see the whole of it, too, for the highest part isn't much over two feet above tide-water mark.
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