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Certainly, it was no ordinary thing that had brought these two together; especially, since, with the unrest and suspicion that was bubbling and seething below the dead line, and with which there was none more intimate than Whitey Mack, Whitey Mack was inviting a risk in "making up" with the police that could only be accounted for by some urgent and vital incentive.
"Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don't keep those long ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me." "Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself, don't you think so, Bunny?" said Katrine, taking the basket. The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl's pulses bounded; he seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses.
Connie Murtha, you know," he goes on, "the big poolroom backer, and one of the flossiest, foxiest widows in New York." "Then that accounts for the husky wad," says I. "Twenty thousand! No piker, was he? Ask your man who's on the case?" "Rusitelli & Donahue," says Whitey. "Mike's a friend of mine too; but he never talks much." "Let's have a try, anyway," says I.
Then he went out. Returning at once to the Old Trusty, on the way passing Terry's car which still stood in front of the store, Steve Packard asked for the use of a telephone. Whitey nodded toward the office, a little room thinly partitioned off from the larger. A moment later Barbee's voice was answering from Ranch Number Ten. "He's on the way, Barbee," said Steve quickly.
Whitey did not know all this that the wide jaws were designed for a grip on the enemy, the snub nose to permit breathing while that grip was held, the widespread legs to secure a firm ground hold; in short, that he was looking at an animal built for conflict, which had the courage of a lion where his enemies were concerned, and the love of a wild thing for its young where its human friends were concerned.
Each declared that he would "rather die than be talked to death"; and then, as the two approached a point bluntly recriminative, Whitey coughed again, whereupon they were miraculously silent, and went into the passageway in a perfectly amiable manner. "I got to have a good look at him, for once," Penrod said, as he stared frowningly at Whitey. "We got to fix up about that reward."
Back toward the men's quarters the night was fractured by sounds like those of a healthy young riot. These meant nothing to Whitey, nor did the pung! pung! of bullets, when he started, or rather when the colt started. Perhaps the men were shooting wide, or perhaps the pony was going so fast the bullets couldn't catch him. Be it said for the threshers they didn't know they were shooting at a boy.
And so Whitey rose, and returned to where Monty was tethered, and he was not ashamed of the fact that he stumbled as he walked. But Injun still crouched out behind the boulder. There was no quivering of his nerves. The only fear he might have had was that if he returned he would be sent to the rear; and he was too wily to take a chance.
He knew that Whitey didn't know that he was anywhere near. But just the same it was hard, very hard to sit there with one he so greatly feared watching so near. It seemed as if those fierce yellow eyes of Whitey must see him. They seemed to look right through him. They made him shake inside. "I want to run. I want to run. I want to run," Jumper kept saying to himself.
Whitey could close his eyes and imagine that he saw an old wagon train wending its way across the prairie, its line of white-topped schooners drawn by drooping, tired horses, its outriding guard of scouts, clad in buckskin, alert, keen-eyed, each with a long rifle resting in the hollow of his arm.
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