A GAME OF WATCHING.
Patsy thought that this was the same man who had come so near killing
Snell.
He had not been sure of that at the time, for he had not been able to
see the would-be murderer’s face.
Now it took only a sharp glance to satisfy him, for the man’s motions
were a little peculiar.
He had a way of bending his head to one side which Patsy had noticed in
the man who had shadowed Snell.
As he remembered it the same sideways hang of the head had been the
case with the would-be murderer in that instant when he saw him darting
after his victim.
“So,” thought Patsy, “he’s at his game again. Been watching Snell,
probably, ever since the attack. There’ll be trouble if he finds his
man on board.”
Nothing could have been plainer than that the man was looking for
somebody.
He went part way through the cabin, giving stealthy, side glances at
the men on the seats.
When he came to the doorway that led to the upper deck, he went up.
“He won’t find Snell up there, I think,” said Patsy to himself, as he
got up and went forward.
The detective went as far as the door that opened upon the forward deck.
Looking through it, he saw Snell leaning against the rail.
Nobody else was out there.
At that moment the boat had hardly got beyond the end of the ferry slip.
Patsy sat down where he could look the length of the men’s cabin and
also glance through the glass in the door at the forward deck.
In less than a minute he saw the stranger coming down the stairs from
the upper cabin.
He was still walking slowly, and peering sharply at the passengers.
When he had come as far as the door, he halted and looked through the
glass.
The detective could see his face.
He saw the man’s brow wrinkle first when he perceived that somebody was
standing alone by the rail.
Then his lips were pressed hard together, and he nodded as if satisfied.
Evidently he had recognized Snell.
For a moment longer he stood there, hesitating, perhaps.
Then he gave a side glance at Patsy, who sat so close that they almost
touched each other.
The detective seemed to be deeply engaged in reading a placard hung on
the opposite wall.
The man softly opened the door and went out.
Patsy was on his feet instantly.
Looking through the glass, he saw the stranger slink into the darkness
by the side wall of the boat, there being a space thus shut in between
the cabin door and the open deck where Snell stood looking at the water.
“What a chance,” thought Patsy, “to sneak up and pitch his man
overboard!”
The stranger stood motionless a moment.
Then he edged forward.
At that Patsy quietly opened the door and stepped out.
The man did not hear him.
His attention was too much taken with what he was going to do.
Snell was motionless.
The boat was about in midstream.
Patsy’s muscles quivered as the stranger glided swiftly up and placed
his hand on Snell’s shoulder.
Snell whirled around, with a gasp of surprise and alarm.
He put up his hands to push the man away, and tried to back from the
rail.
The stranger kept his hand firmly on Snell’s shoulder.
For a second or two the men jostled each other, but it could not be
said that they were struggling.
The stranger seemed merely trying to hold Snell still.
Patsy heard him say:
“Keep quiet! I am not going to hurt you!”
Evidently Snell was somewhat relieved at this, but he was still
frightened.
“I’ve a good mind to have you arrested,” he said.
The other laughed.
“You’ll think better of that as soon as you see a policeman,” he
retorted.
“You’ve tried to kill me once to-night,” said Snell.
“Well, let that pass. I didn’t succeed, and now that you’re starting
West I shan’t try again.”
“What do you want of me now?”
“I want to talk with you.”
“On the same subject?”
“The same.”
Snell gave a hasty glance at the river.
“Think of jumping in?” sneered the stranger.
“No,” replied Snell, with a shudder.
Then he looked back toward the cabin, and saw Patsy.
Seeing that he was perceived, the detective walked easily forward and
stood looking at the lights of Jersey City.
“This is no place,” said Snell, in a low tone.
“Of course not. I’ll go on the train with you.”
Snell started uncomfortably.
“I presume,” the other went on, with a harsh chuckle, “that you engaged
a stateroom on the sleeper, and thought that you would lock yourself in
and so be safe for the night. Fortunately, there’s room for two in a
stateroom.”
At this, Snell said nothing, but went back to the cabin.
The other followed, and both went inside.
“Well!” thought Patsy, “this is a puzzler, and no mistake. Are they
both crooks? and have they had a falling out?
“One is certainly a would-be murderer, and Snell is plainly in great
fear of him.
“I should think he would be.
“I wonder if they will actually occupy the same room on the train?”
They did.
Snell, as the stranger had said, had engaged a stateroom, and both went
into it immediately on going aboard the train.
Patsy secured a berth in the same car, and, as he turned in he wondered
whether one man or two would come out of that stateroom in the morning.
It seemed to him most likely that the stranger would make an attempt to
murder Snell during the night.
“If it were my business to take care of Snell,” thought the detective,
“I’d invent some way to do it; but it isn’t, and I’ll just wait and see
what happens.”
With that thought he went to sleep.
In the morning he touched the button beside his berth before getting up.
When the porter came he asked:
“Is there a dining car on the train, Charley?”
“Yessah,” replied the porter. “Breakfast will be ready in twenty
minutes, sah.”
“All right; then I’ll get up.”
“Sumfin else yo’ want, sah?”
“Yes. Put your head in here, Charley?”
The porter put his head in between the curtains.
“Have the gentlemen in the stateroom turned out yet?” asked Patsy.
“No, sah; ain’t seed nuffin’ of ’em.”
“Were they quiet all night?”
“Yassah. Leastwise, I didn’t hear nuffin.”
“All right.”
“Friends of yours, sah?”
“Not exactly, but I’m curious about them, that’s all. You needn’t say I
asked any questions.”
“No, sah—thank yo’ berry much, sah. Won’t say a word.”
The porter had received handsome pay for his silence, and Patsy knew he
could be trusted.
He dressed and went forward to the dining car.
As he passed Snell’s stateroom, he listened for the sound of voices,
but none came.
The detective wondered if there was one man in that room who couldn’t
speak.
Having plenty of time to kill, he spent an hour at the breakfast table.
Before he was ready to go, in came Snell and the stranger.
They sat at the same table and appeared to be in good spirits—at least,
the stranger was.
Snell looked rather haggard, but he talked with his companion, and
without any apparent fear of him.
“Strange!” thought Patsy; “but I’m glad my man is still alive. I want
to find out what it all means.”
He went to the smoker, and after he had been there half an hour or so,
Snell and the stranger came in also.
They did not talk much as they smoked their cigars, but no one would
have guessed that one had tried to kill the other less than twelve
hours before.
So it was all the way to Chicago.
The two men were together all the time, and there was hardly a minute
that the detective did not have them in view.
It was early morning when the train arrived in Chicago.
Snell and his companion got into a cab, and Patsy heard them tell the
driver to go to the Northwestern station.
Patsy arrived at the station at the same moment they did.
They breakfasted in the station restaurant, and after a time they went
to the ticket window.
Snell bought a ticket for Helena, Montana.
The stranger did not buy any.
This also seemed somewhat strange, and the detective was a little
disappointed.
He had hoped to keep them together.
But he bought a ticket for Helena, and in due time was again on the
same train with Snell.
The stranger stayed at the station until the train left, and Patsy saw
him on the platform as it rolled out.
Nothing of importance happened on the rest of the way to Helena.
Once the detective tried to scrape acquaintance with Snell, but the
latter answered him in a surly way, and made it plain that he did not
care to talk to anybody.
So Patsy gave it up for fear of making him suspicious.
Meantime, he had telegraphed Nick as to where he was going.
When they arrived in Helena, Snell did not go to a first-rate hotel, as
he had done in New York, but walked about the streets, as if looking
for some place that he had been sent to.
It was pretty clear that he was a stranger in the city.
At last he turned into a small building, on which there was a rough
sign, with these words:
BRONCO BILL’S HOUSE.
The place was hardly larger than an ordinary saloon, and liquor selling
certainly was its principal business.
Patsy went in a moment after Snell.
He found himself in a cheap barroom, where a few men were loafing.
Snell was at one end of the bar, talking in a low voice with one who
seemed to be the proprietor.
The detective took his place at the other end of the bar and called for
a drink.
A moment later, Snell and the proprietor went out by a door at the
back, and he heard their steps going up a flight of stairs.
They were gone but a minute, and when they returned, Snell was saying:
“It may be only two or three days, you know, and I can get along all
right. I’ll pay for the room for a week, anyway.”
With this, he took bills from his pocket, and gave money to the
proprietor, who responded:
“O.K., then the place is yours.”
Then the landlord invited Snell to have a drink, and Snell accepted the
invitation.
“Well,” thought Patsy, “I shall have to find another place to stay.
Bronco Bill evidently isn’t used to having guests in real hotel
fashion, and two at a time would make him and everybody else suspicious.
“I couldn’t put up any sort of a yarn that would satisfy them. So I’ll
get a room somewhere else, and then drop in here when I feel like it.
“That will be safe enough, for it looks sure that Snell is bound to
stay for a while.”
As the detective left the saloon, he saw a sign in the window of a
house opposite:
ROOMS TO LET.
“That will do,” he decided, “but not just yet.”
He was fearful that Snell might be watching him, for he could not tell
how suspicious that strange man might be.
So he walked around town a little while, made a complete change in his
disguise, and finally returned to the lodging house opposite Bronco
Bill’s.
There he hired a room that had a window opening on the street, at which
he sat for some time, with his face hidden behind the curtain.
He saw enough to know that Snell was still at the “hotel,” and he was
satisfied.
Late in the afternoon, Snell went out.
The detective followed, of course.
At first Snell did not seem to have any errand. He seemed to be walking
for exercise.
But at last he stopped and looked in at a store window.
Rifles, revolvers, and all sorts of things that hunters need were
displayed there.
Snell went in, and Patsy, looking in at the window, saw him buy a
revolver.
With this in his pocket, the strange man returned to Bronco Bill’s and
disappeared within.
That evening the detective loafed away most of the time in Bronco
Bill’s barroom, but he did not see Snell.
There was the ordinary crowd of idle workingmen, and a few roughs
who evidently came in from ranches at a distance, but there was no
disorder; none of the men seemed to be crooks, and nothing happened to
throw any light on Snell’s business in Helena.
It was much the same the next day and evening.
Snell took a long walk, but spoke to no one on the way, and when he
returned he apparently shut himself in the room he had hired.
He came into the barroom late during the evening, but it was only to
have a drink, and go upstairs again at once.
“Who’s the stranger, Bill?” asked one of the loafers.
“How should I know?” was the surly response. “A gent comes to my house
an’ takes a room an’ pays for it like a gent. Why should I ask him if
his father went to church reg’lar, or if he intends to start a faro
bank?”
“Do you think he does mean to start a faro bank, Bill?”
“Aw, come off!” returned Bill, scornfully. “Can’t you take a hint? I
don’t know the gent’s business, and, if I did, I shouldn’t shoot off my
mouth about it.”
Next day, Snell took several walks, but they were short ones. He always
returned quickly to Bill’s, and once Patsy heard him ask the landlord
if anybody had inquired for him.
Nobody had, but it was clear that Snell’s business, whatever it was,
was coming to a head.
In the evening quite a number of men galloped through the streets on
horseback.
They shouted and sang songs and made a good deal of a racket at every
place they visited.
By the time they arrived at Bronco Bill’s they were well loaded and
noisier than ever.
“Paint the place red,” yelled half a dozen of them, as they came
stamping in.
Patsy was standing at the farther end of the bar talking with Bill,
with whom he had picked up acquaintance.
Snell was seated at a table in the corner nearest the door.
“Everybody have a drink!” shouted the leader of the party, looking
around the room.
All except Snell got up and went to the bar.
“Come on, stranger,” yelled the leader.
Snell, seeing that he was spoken to, got up slowly and started toward
the bar.
His face was pale, and it was evident to Patsy that he wished he were
not there.
When he was halfway to the bar he turned suddenly and made for the
stairway door.
He passed through quickly, closed the door behind him, and all in the
room heard the click of the lock as he turned the key.
“Well, I’ll be durned!” exclaimed the leader.
As he spoke he drew a revolver from his belt, and, with the quick
motions of a Westerner, pointed it toward the door.
But he was not so quick as Patsy, who darted forward and knocked his
arm up.
The revolver went off, but the bullet, instead of crashing through the
door and thus endangering Snell’s life, flew into the ceiling.
“Now then, gents,” began Bronco Bill, who didn’t want a disturbance in
his place.
The leader was too mad to be stopped by talk.
Turning fiercely upon Patsy, he demanded:
“What in thunder do you mean, tenderfoot?”
“I was afraid you might hurt somebody,” responded the detective,
quietly; “then you’d be sorry.”
“Sorry! me sorry!” roared the ruffian; “reckon you don’t know who
you’re talking to. I’m Serpent Sam, of the Dead Hills, I am, and no
man tells me what I shall or shan’t do. I’ll make you dance for your
impudence, you measly tenderfoot!”