“No, no! the adventures first: explanations take such a dreadful
time.”
--_The Gryphon._
Billy took up his quarters at the leading hotel and permeated both El
Paso and Juarez with much abandon. He wired Cleveland, Ohio, for funds,
and Cleveland responded generously, sending him, without delay or
demur, a noble wad for the emergency.
George frequented the real-estate section on legitimate, if trivial,
pretexts connected with Hibler’s business; demanding vacation from that
legal luminary on his arrival. Pringle waxed talkative with visiting
and resident cowmen, among whom exists a curious freemasonry, informal
but highly effective.
Moreover, Pringle disregarded his own explicit instructions. Such
cowmen as he knew well--and trusted--began to infest Juarez. Their mere
orders--for he gave them no reasons--were to watch either Thorpe or
Patterson if they visited the Mexican city; also any obnoxiously fat
men with whom they should hold conference; and to report progress.
The four friends between them watched Thorpe in all his doings, dogged
his footsteps by night and by day--passed him from one to the other
like the button in the game--with such vigilance that at the end of the
week they had discovered no single thing to their help.
Thorpe loitered through life in sybaritic fashion; rose late, fared
sumptuously; gave a little time to the real-estate office in which he
was investing partner; more to political conferences. In the afternoons
he rode or motored; sometimes he dropped in to the Fire Company’s
bowling alley instead, combating a certain tendency to corpulence.
For the rest there was dinner at his club; bridge with a select
coterie, or perhaps the theater; occasionally, a social function. And
the day usually ended with a visit to the big Turkish Baths on Franklin
Street, another precaution against fatness. Nothing could be more open
and aboveboard than this respectable gentleman’s walk and auto.
Patterson’s doings were much the same, save that he shunned the little
entertainments where the Judge shone with a warm and mellow splendor,
and ventured often into that quarter of the town that was Leo’s
particular care, breaking rather more than his full quota of windows.
He made also a brief trip to Silver City, on which occasion Pringle
again violated his own orders by sending red-headed Joe Cowan, cowboy,
of Organ, as an observer for the G. M. A. T.--to no benefit to the
society.
Patterson had gone to look over a mining proposition for a client.
This unavailing search had one curious and unexpected result. Noticing
many people closely, perforce, they observed that a surprising number
of these had done those things that they really ought not to have done.
Also, they kept on doing them; confident that no man saw them: so
cunning were they. So that Ballinger gloomily avowed his intention of
turning blackmailer, rather than again to appeal to what he was pleased
to term the “unremitting kindness” of his family.
Only one thing had occurred so far which the most besotted optimist
could interpret as even a possible confirmation of their suspicions.
One night, the fourth of their surveillance, Judge Thorpe took a late
street car for Juarez, foregoing the baths. When he alighted from
it, at Calle San Rafael, John Wesley Pringle also left the car on the
farther side and walked smartly away.
Thorpe having turned eastward, Pringle came back and trailed along far
behind. He dared not follow closely; if Thorpe’s suspicions should be
aroused it would go hard with Jeff. He preferred to risk losing his man
rather than to risk the consequences of an alarm.
And lose him he did. The Judge turned to the left at Terrazas Street.
Pringle was just a little too far behind. He made haste to come up, but
when he reached the corner the Judge was out of sight; nor could he
catch the trail again. And the Judge returned to El Paso without being
seen again.
Of the other labors of the four friends during this weary time; of
myriad casual questions that came to naught; of unnumbered fat men
traced, unsuspecting, to their blameless homes; of hope deferred,
disappointments, fastings, vain vigils, and all their acts--behold! are
they not written in the book of Lost Endeavor?
* * * * *
Meanwhile Jeff read many books, he practised his typewriting, he
baited Mac mercilessly, he experimented with new dishes procured by
that trusty henchman; and day by day he noted in the papers little
personals: “Understand situation perfectly that quick move will
jeopardize”; “Making haste slowly to come to aid of party, whereabouts
unknown sit steady”; and others, variously worded to report no
progress, to extol the difficult virtue of patience and to recommend
its practice--always with a fragment from one of the catchword
sentences for an identification tag. One of them gave no news at all.
It read: “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. Practise that for
quick movement. Lots of time.”
But as John Wesley sagely remarked, “It’s a long worm that has no
turning.” And as he said again, “The end doesn’t come till along
towards the last.”