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I tried to make up a poem about him as I came down the river, but I couldn't get any farther than: There was an old person named Skeels, Who lived upon lobsters and eels, and he did look as if he lived upon lobsters and eels, too. Or WITH them. Anyhow, he'll be down to Mr. Pike's tomorrow, asking for the canoe. And my bag, and suit-case, and all my clothes are in it, too.
"I want you," Worth paid no attention to her objections, "to describe the man you thought you were asking for that day at the Gold Nugget, when Jerry butted in, and your ideas got lost in the excitement about Skeels. Deduce the description, I mean." "Deduce it?" Barbara spoke stiffly, incredulously, her glance going from Worth to the well-gowned, well-groomed woman beside him.
Could that be worked? A gambler at night, a bank employee by day? Why not? Improbable. But not impossible. "I believe you said a mouthful, Worth," I broke in on the two at their lunch. "And tell me, girl, how did you get the idea of walking up to the desk at the Gold Nugget and demanding Steve Skeels from the Kite?" "I didn't demand Steve Skeels," she reminded me rather plaintively.
I promised myself that it should be simply "there and back" with me in the Skeels matter.
One of my pieces of mail concerned the Skeels chase. If my men down there had Skeels, and Skeels was Clayte, it would mean everything in handling Cummings and Dykeman. I took out the report and ran hastily through it; a formal statement; day by day stuff: "Found Skeels and Dial at Tiajuana. Negotiating to buy saloon and gambling house. D. was his partner in proposition.
"Miss Wallace," I said sharply, "what's this Steve Skeels stuff? What's this reroofing stuff? What's the dope you think you have, and you think I haven't? Tell us, and we'll not waste time. Tell us, and we'll get ahead on this case. Worth, let that rubbish alone. Nothing there for us. Come here and listen." For all answer he straightened up, looked at us without a word and went to it again.
Steve had come on one steamer and the two had left on the next. That north-bound boat we passed two hours off Point Loma was carrying Skeels and his pal back to San Diego! Again two days lost, waiting for the steamer back. And when I got to San Diego, the trail was stone cold.
But the Mexican officials are a rotten lot; it seemed to me best to go it alone. What I found in Ensenada was that Skeels had been there, quite publicly, under his own name; he had come alone and departed with a companion, Hinch Dial, a drill operator from the mines, a transient, a pick-up laborer, seemingly as close-mouthed as Silent Steve himself.
"Somehow, I didn't think of that when you came along," he admitted. "But don't you really know where the canoe is?" 'Why, it disappeared around that point, just before I saw your boat. I really ought to get it again, because Mr. Skeels that's the name of the man who owns it isn't it great?
When I believed I had Skeels firmly clasped in the jaws of the Ensenada trap, I had sent a complete report of my doings up to that time, and the optimistic outlook then, to Barbara with instructions for her to get it to Worth. She would know where he was. But she hadn't.
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