"Glad to meet yuh," exclaimed Hobbs beamingly. "Say, that's on the level, too! I mean, about us bein' empty. I gotta admit it don't look honest to be stickin' yuh up, but gee! We had to do somethin' quick! We been on the square until now, the doc an' me."
Mackintavers turned about, a sudden flash in his cold eyes, to meet the quizzical regard of the man in the tonneau.
For a moment the two gazed silently at each other. The bandit was not an old man, being distinctly young in comparison with either of the other two; yet something had seared across his face an indefinable shadow. It was a rarely fine face, beneath its stubble of reddish beard. It was not the handsome face of a tailor's advertisement--it was the handsome face that is chiseled by character and suffering and achievement.
Despite its harshness, despite the cynical eyes that sneered through their laughter, this red-headed man was a flame of virile strength and surging energy--tensed high, nervous, like steel in temper. The blanket-roll across his shoulders swung like a feather. His hands, as his bronzed face, were lean and energetic, unspeakably strong. It was evident that this man and Willyum had come from the very antipodes of life and environment. An overwhelming surprise lighted the broken face of Mackintavers as he gazed.
"The doc!" he repeated slowly. "Why--why--aiblins, now--man, ye can't be the same!"
"I am, Mackintavers; the same man who removed that broken appendix from your insides two years ago in St. Louis, and a thousand dollars from your pocketbook for the job. Quite a drop for me, eh? Quite a drop for Douglas Murray, to be a bindle stiff, eh?"
"I can't believe it!" he said. "Aiblins, now, it's some joke--some damned nonsense! Why, you were one of the finest surgeons in the country, a man at the top, not yet thirty----"
Bitterness seared itself across the face of Murray.
"That's exactly what broke me," he asserted in biting tones.
"But I don't understand!" blurted Mackintavers.
Willyum Hobbs made a gesture, an imploring gesture; across his homely, earnest features flitted a look of appeal, of anxious worry. He glanced at Murray as a dog eyes his troubled master, with love and uneasiness. But Douglas Murray laughed jeeringly, harshly.