She clinched her hands tightly together in her lap.
“Well, what is it you’re goin’ to do?” he asked.
“If I can find out where they are I’m going to notify the sheriff.”
“Well, now, do you think all that gives you any cause to ask them to watch my establishment?”
He stopped her with a wave of his fat hand, leaning toward her.
“Before you answer that, which will be with a lie, I reckon, tell me what you know about this feller on top o’ Folly Mountain?”
“We’d like to know somethin’ about him, more than we do.”
“I’ve heard it hinted that he is a road agent, playing a game there to fool the people.”
“I’ve heard the same, and I’d like to know the truth. Now, I get right down to why I sent fer you. By offerin’ to go in with Buffalo Bill and Matt Shepard, you’ve showed that you’re a good deal of a fool. I’m speakin’ straight, you see. What can they offer you? And what have you got in common with them, anyhow? Your kind is the kind that hangs out at the Casino and round the wine rooms; not the law-and-order crowd. You know it.”
“Yes, I know that, though I’m ashamed of it.”
“Get over that!” he said roughly. “You’ll receive more kindness from your own crowd than you ever will from any other. Take it from me straight, that you will. So, in the end, you ain’t goin’ to gain anything by goin’ in with that crowd. Cut it out!”
“That sounds more like it. In the first place, I want to say to you that you can’t stay round here and me not know everything you’re doin’; just recollect that, and it may be of help to you. I’ve got friends in plenty; men you wouldn’t think of, too. When that law-and-order crowd gets through with you, and that will be just as soon as they ain’t got no further use for you, you’ll get no favors from them; you ought to know that. With your own crowd you can always have friends and help when you want it. I know what’s troublin’ you. You think you want to got even with Benson and Juniper Joe. Now, let me tell you that you don’t. You’d better forgit that old jealousy quarrel and let it go.”
But he saw her eyes blaze when he said it.
“Not until both of them are back in jail or hung for it,” she told him, her voice tense with sudden emotion.
“A fine spirit for a woman to get into!” he declared, with a forced laugh. “But I think you’ll get over it when you’ve had a little time. Now, I’m goin’ to make you a proposition. It’s got money in it, too. I’ll pay you twice what you’re gettin’ at the Casino, if you’ll scrape an acquaintance with the Fool of Folly Mountain and find out just what he is up to.”