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It's been so long that the three men on guard tonight will be half asleep." "I dunno but you're right. Why didn't you speak up in company? I'll call the chief and " "Wait," said Terry, laying a hand on the round, hard-muscled shoulder of the yegg. "I had a purpose in waiting. Seven men are too many to take into a town." "Eh?" "Two men might surprise three.
Pett, but there had been something menacing in the latter's voice, and he believed in safety first. "They told me Miss Chester was here," he said by way of relaxing any possible strain there might be in the situation. "And what the devil do you want with Miss Chester, you slimy, crawling second-story-worker, you damned, oily yegg?" enquired Jimmy.
On the balcony in front of the sleeping rooms of the second story, his legs spread apart, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, his shapeless black hat crushed on the back of his head, and a broad smile on his ugly face, stood his nemesis Denver the yegg! Pollard sprang back from the table and spoke with his face still turned to Terry. "Pete!" he called. "Come in!"
The flip of the coin had decided their fate. It meant for James McDonald that he had become an apprentice to Kansas Shorty, the Plinger a begging tramp; while for Joseph McDonald it spelled that he had become a companion to Slippery, the Yegg a criminal tramp. "Busting a Broncho."
Joe only stopped for a moment, for when one of the men, more curious than the others, lifted up a corner of the blanket, Joe gazed into the lifeless features of Slippery, the yegg, and forced by his emotions he retreated quickly to another part of the platform.
Besides, he had the class contempt of the high-grade confidence man the same being the aristocrat of the underworld for the crude and violent and therefore doubly dangerous codes of the stick-up, who is a highwayman; and the prowler, who is a burglar; and the yegg, who is a safe blower of sorts.
Archie, with the Congdons looming large on his horizon, was not interested in the philosophical aspects of petty pilfering. "Stick to Eliphalet," he suggested. "Oh, yes! Well, I met today one of the most remarkable of all the men I know who camp outside the pale. Perky is his name in Who's Who in No Man's Land. A jeweler by trade, he fell from his high estate and went on the road as a yegg.
Drills, jimmies, even a light hammer and here's a little contrivance that has been known to pluck the secret from most intricate combinations my own invention. The common yegg habit of pouring an explosive fluid into the cracks of a strong box is obsolete. I hold that such a procedure is vulgar, besides being calculated to make an ugly noise when not perfectly muffled.
From that evening when he for the first time in his whole life, studied the life of a yegg from a commonsense and strictly commercial side and found it in all its phases a losing game, dated the desire to quit the life of crime when the first opportunity presented itself, but whenever he tried to picture himself as having a happy home of his own, there, like a black cloud suspended in a blue sky, came to him the knowledge that never more could he hide his past, for from the moment that he should endeavor to walk the narrow path, every yegg in the land would point to him as a former brother-in-crime, and gossiping tongues would quickly force him back into the fold, even while with his calloused hands he would be toiling to earn an honest living.
Jim leaped from his bunk at Kansas Shorty's throat, as if he were a wounded tiger, to strangle with his bare hands the fiend who had so wantonly spoiled his life, but he only gripped the cold steel bars of his cell and awakened, then as he sank back upon the edge of the prison-bunk, he realized that now it was too late and he burst into bitter tears. "Slippery, the Yegg."
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