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The men exchanged a few hurried words. Carefully scrutinising the house, they noticed a newspaper waving cautiously in an open window. One of them came forward, the other remained by the stream bathing his feet and ankles in the water. No one else was in sight. Mrs. Ginnell was cooking on the other side of the house. Anderson had gone off to catch his train.
"See here," said Harman, "I had the news from Clancy that morning, and it had only just come to 'Frisco, it wasn't an hour old; we put the cap on Ginnell and were out of the Golden Gate before sundown same day.
"One word!" shouted Ginnell, suddenly dropping the mask of urbanity and levelling the pistol. It was as though the tiger-cat in his grimy soul had suddenly burst bonds and mastered him.
With the "linth of lead pipe," a most formidable weapon, sticking from his pocket, he ran to help with the falls; the whaleboat smacked the water, the crew tumbled in, and, with Ginnell in the bow, it started for the shore. The gong had done its work.
Before Anderson left his room, Ginnell came in, bringing his accounts for certain small expenses. Anderson, standing with his back to his father, took out a pocketbook full of bills. At Calgary the day before a friend had repaid him a loan of a thousand dollars.
The bay stinks with him and his doin's; settin' Chinese sturgeon lines, Captain Mike said he was, and all but nailed, smugglin' and playin' up to the Greeks, and worse. The Bayside's hungry to catch him an' stuff him in the penitentiary, and he hasn't no friends. I'm no saint, I owns it, but I'm a plaster John the Baptis' to Ginnell, and I've got friends, so have you.
Then, as the huge sail bellied gently to the wind and the junk broke the violet breeze shadow beyond the calm of the sheltered water, a voice came over the sea, a voice like the clamour of a hundred gulls, thin, rending, fierce as the sound of tearing calico. "Shout away, me boys," said Ginnell. "You've got the shout and we've got the boodle, and good day to ye."
Wish he may get it!" laughed the doctor. "Well, keep him from drink, if you can. But I doubt if you'll cheat the undertaker very long. Good night. There'll be a train along soon that'll pick me up." Anderson went back to the cabin, found that his father had dropped asleep, left money and directions with Mrs. Ginnell, and then returned to his own lodgings. He sat down to write to Delaine.
There was a small scrap of shingly beach off which the Chinamen's scow was lying anchored with a stone and with a China boy for anchor watch. The whale-boat passed the scow, dashed nose end up the shelving beach, and the next moment Ginnell and his linth of lead pipe was amongst the Chinamen, whilst Blood, following him, was firing his revolver over their heads.
The lackadaisical ventilator cowl, which took an occasional movement from stray puffs of air, added its voice now and then, whining and complaining like some lost yet inconsiderable soul. No other sound could be heard as the three men ranged themselves, Ginnell on the starboard, and Blood and Harman on the port side of the table.
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