“Some one ought to give Mr. Kerry the tip to get out and not give evidence,” remarked Sibley sagely. Deely shook his head vigorously. “Begobs, he’s had the tip all right, but he’s not goin’. He’s got as much fear as a canary has whiskers. He doesn’t want to give evidence, he says, but he wants to see the law do its work. Burlingame ‘ll try to make it out manslaughter; but there’s a widow with children to suffer for the manslaughter, just as much as though it was murder, and there isn’t a man that doesn’t think murder was the game, and the grand joory had that idea too.
“Between Gus Burlingame and that M’Mahon bunch of horse-thieves, the stranger in a strange land ‘ll have to keep his eyes open, I’m thinkin’.”
“Divils me darlin’, his eyes are open all right,” returned Deely.
“Still, I’d like to jog his elbow,” Sibley answered reflectively. “It couldn’t do any harm, and it might do good.”
Deely nodded good-naturedly. “If you want to so bad as that, John, you’ve got the chance, for he’s up at the Sovereign Bank now. I seen him leave the Great Overland Railway Bureau ten minutes ago and get away quick to the bank.”
“What’s he got on at the bank and the railway?”
“Some big deal, I guess. I’ve seen him with Studd Bradley.”
“On it, my boy, on it--the other day as thick as thieves. Studd Bradley doesn’t knit up with an outsider from the old country unless there’s reason for it--good gold-currency reasons.”
“A land deal, eh?” ventured Sibley. “What did I say--speculation, that’s his vice, same as mine! P’r’aps that’s what ruined him. Cards, speculation, what’s the difference? And he’s got a quiet look, same as me.”
Deely laughed loudly. “And bursts out same as you! Quiet one hour like a mill-pond or a well, and then--swhish, he’s blazin’! He’s a volcano in harness, that spalpeen.”
“He’s a volcano that doesn’t erupt when there’s danger,” responded Sibley. “It’s when there’s just fun on that his volcano gets loose. I’ll go wait for him at the bank. I got a fellow-feeling for Mr. Kerry. I’d like to whisper in his ear that he’d better be lookin’ sharp for the M’Mahon Gang, and that if he’s a man of peace he’d best take a holiday till after next week, or get smallpox or something.”
The two friends lounged slowly up the street, and presently parted near the door of the bank. As Sibley waited, his attention was drawn to a window on the opposite side of the street at an angle from themselves. The light was such that the room was revealed to its farthest corners, and Sibley noted that three men were evidently carefully watching the bank, and that one of the men was Studd Bradley, the so-called boss. The others were local men of some position commercially and financially in the town. Sibley did not give any sign that he noticed the three men, but he watched carefully from under the rim of his hat. His imagination, however, read a story of consequence in the secretive vigilance of the three, who evidently thought that, standing far back in the room, they could not be seen.