Leaning against the inside of his own door, startled by the rapid
sequence of events, Keith was able, from different sounds reaching him,
to mentally picture most of what occurred in the next room. He heard
Bill sink down into the convenient chair, and drink from the bottle,
while the gambler apparently advanced toward the bed, where he stood
looking down on its unconscious occupant.
“The fool is dead drunk,” he declared disgustedly. “We can't do anything
with him to-night.”
“I say--throw bucket water over him,” hiccoughed the other genially,
“allers sobers me off.”
Hawley made no response, evidently finding a seat on one end of the
washstand.
“Hardly worth while, Scott,” he returned finally. “Perhaps I better
have some understanding with Christie, anyhow, before I pump the boy any
further. If we can once get her working with us, Willoughby won't have
much hand in the play--we shan't need him. Thought I told you to keep
sober?”
“Am sober,” solemnly, “ain't had but six drinks; just nat'rly tired
out.”
“Oh, indeed; well, such a room as this would drive any man to drink. Did
you get what I sent you here after?”
“I sure did, Bart,” and Keith heard the fellow get to his feet
unsteadily. “Here's the picture, an' some letters. I didn't take only
what he had in the grip.”
Hawley shuffled the letters over in his hands, apparently hastily
reading them with some difficulty in the dim light.
“Nothing there to give us any help,” he acknowledged reluctantly,
“mostly advice as far as I can see. Damn the light; a glow worm would
be better.” There was a pause; then he slapped his leg. “However, it's
clear they live in Springfield, Missouri, and this photograph is a
peach. Just look here, Bill! What did I tell you? Ain't Christie a dead
ringer for this girl?”
“You bet she is, Bart,” admitted the other in maudlin admiration, “only,
I reckon, maybe some older.”
“Well, she ought to be accordin' to Willoughby's story, an' them papers
bear him out all right, so I reckon he's told it straight--this Phyllis
would be twenty-six now, and that's just about what Christie is. It
wouldn't have fit better if we had made it on purpose. If the girl will
only play up to the part we won't need any other evidence--her face
would be enough.”
Keith could hear the beating of his own heart in the silence that
followed. Here was a new thought, a new understanding, a complete new
turn to affairs. Christie Maclaire, then, was not Willoughby's sister
Hope. The girl he rescued on the desert--the girl with the pleading
brown eyes, and the soft blur of the South on her lips--was not
the music hall singer. He could hardly grasp the truth at first, it
antagonized so sharply with all he had previously believed. Yet, if this
were true his own duty became clearer than ever; aye, and would be more
willingly performed. But what did Hawley know? Did he already realize
that the girl he had first met on the stage coach, and later inveigled
into the desert, was Hope, and not the music hall artist? He, of course,
fully believed her to be Christie Maclaire at that time, but something
might have occurred since to change that belief. Anyhow, the man was
not now seeking Hope, but the other. Apparently the latter was either
already here in Sheridan or expected soon. And exactly what was it
the gambler desired this Maclaire woman to do? This was the important
matter, and for its solution Keith possessed merely a few hints, a
few vague suggestions. She was expected to represent herself as
Phyllis--Phyllis who? Some Phyllis surely whose physical resemblance to
Hope must be sufficiently marked to be at once noticeable. Willoughby
had evidently revealed to Hawley some hidden family secret, having
money involved, no doubt, and in which the discovery of this mysterious
Phyllis figured. She might, perhaps, be a sister, or half-sister, who
had disappeared, and remained ignorant as to any inheritance. Hope's
picture shown by the boy, and reminding Hawley at once of Christie
Maclaire, had been the basis of the whole plot. Exactly what the details
of that plot might be Keith could not figure out, but one thing was
reasonably certain--it was proposed to defraud Hope. And who in the very
truth was Hope? It suddenly occurred to him as a remarkably strange fact
that he possessed not the slightest inkling as to the girl's name. Her
brother had assumed to be called Willoughby when he enlisted in the
army, and his companions continued to call him this. If he could
interview the girl now for only five minutes he should be able probably
to straighten out the whole intricate tangle. But where was she? Would
she have remained until this time at Fort Larned with Kate Murphy?
There was a noise of movement in the next room. Apparently as Hawley
arose carelessly from his edge of the washstand he had dislodged the
glass, which fell shivering on the floor. Scott swore audibly at the
loss.
“Shut up, Bill,” snapped the gambler, irritated, “you've got the bottle
left. I'm going; there's nothing for any of us to do now, until after I
see Christie. You remain here! Do you understand?--remain here. Damn
me, if that drunken fool isn't waking up.” There was a rattling of
the rickety bed, and then the sound of Willoughby's voice, thick from
liquor.
“Almighty glad see you, Bart--am, indeed. Want money--Bill an' I both
want money--can't drink without money--can't eat without money--shay,
when you goin' stake us?”
“I'll see you again in the morning, Fred,” returned the other briefly.
“Go on back to sleep.”
“Will when I git good an' ready--go sleep, stay wake, just as I
please--don't care damn what yer do--got new frien' now.”
“A new friend? Who?” Hawley spoke with aroused interest.
“Oh, he's all right--he's mighty fine fellow--come in wisout
in--invitation--ol' friend my sister--called--called her Hope--you fool,
Bart Hawley, think my sister Christie--Christie--damfino the name--my
sister, Hope--don't want yer money--my--my new friend, he 'll stake
me--he knows my sister--Hope.”
The gambler grasped the speaker, shaking him into some slight semblance
of sobriety.
“Now, look here, Willoughby, I want the truth, and mean to have it,” he
insisted. “Has some one been in here while Scott was gone?”
“Sure--didn't I just tell yer?--friend o' Hope's.”
“Who was he? Speak up! I want the name!”
There was a faint gurgling sound, as though the gambler's vise-like
fingers were at the boy's throat; a slight struggle, and then the choked
voice gasped out:
“Let up! damn yer! He called himself Jack Keith.”
The dead silence which ensued was broken only by heavy breathing. Then
Scott swore, bringing his fist down with a crash on the washstand.
“That rather stumps yer, don't it, Bart? Well, it don't me. I tell yer
it's just as I said from the first. It was Keith an' that nigger what
jumped ye in the cabin. They was hidin' there when we rode in. He just
nat'rly pumped the gal, an' now he's up here trailin' you. Blame it all,
it makes me laugh.”
“I don't see what you see to laugh at. This Keith isn't an easy man to
play with, let me tell you. He may have got on to our game.”
“Oh, hell, Bart, don't lose your nerve. He can't do anything, because
we've got the under holt. He's a fugitive; all we got to do is
locate him, an' have him flung back inter jail--there's murder an'
hoss-stealing agin him.”
Hawley seemed to be thinking swiftly, while his companion took another
drink.
“Well, pard, ain't that so?”
“No, that trick won't work, Scott. We could do it easily enough if we
were down in Carson, where the boys would help us out. The trouble up
here is that 'Wild Bill' Hickock is Marshal of Sheridan, and he and I
never did hitch. Besides, Keith was one of his deputies down at Dodge
two years ago--you remember when Dutch Charlie's place was cleaned out?
Well, Hickock and Keith did that job all alone, and 'Wild Bill' isn't
going back on that kind of a pal, is he? I tell you we've got to fight
this affair alone, and on the quiet. Maybe the fellow don't know much
yet, but he's sure on the trail, or else he wouldn't have been in here
talking to Willoughby. We've got to get him, Scott, somehow. Lord, man,
there's a clean million dollars waiting for us in this deal, and I'm
ready to fight for it. But I'm damned sleepy, and I'm going to bed. You
locate Keith to-morrow, and then, when you're sober, we'll figure out
how we can get to him best; I've got to set Christie right. Good-night,
Bill.”
He went out into the hall and down the creaking stairs, the man he
wanted so badly listening to his descending footsteps, half tempted to
follow. Scott did not move, perhaps had already fallen drunkenly asleep
on his chair, and finally Keith crossed his own room, and lay down. The
din outside continued unabated, but the man's intense weariness overcame
it all, and he fell asleep, his last conscious thought a memory of Hope.