Flowing Gold | Page 9

would amount to."
"My time is worth nothing. If you hesitate to intrust this king's ransom
to me, I'll go personally responsible for its value. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Don't be silly. How could I pay you if you did go?"
"Um-m!" This idea, it seemed, had not occurred to Mr. Gray. It was
plain that money meant nothing to him.
"You see? We couldn't permit--"
"I have it. We'll divorce friendship and sentiment entirely from the
discussion and reduce it to a strictly business basis. You shall ease your
conscience by paying my traveling expenses. The emotional suspense
that I undergo shall be my reward. I'll take my commission in thrills."
This offer evoked a light laugh from Gray's guest. "You'd get enough of
'em," he asserted. "I'll advance a mild one, on account, at this moment.
Notice the couple dining at the third table to your left. "Gray lifted his
eyes. "What do you see?"
"A rather well-dressed, hard-faced man and a decidedly attractive
woman--brunette. There's a suggestion of repressed widowhood about

her. It's the gown, probably. I am not yet in my dotage, and I had seen
her before I saw you."
"She's living here. I don't know much about her, but the man goes by
the name of Mallow."
"No thrill yet."
"He's been hanging about our store for the past month, making a few
purchases and getting acquainted with some of the clerks. Wherever I
go, lately, there he is. I'll wager if I took to- night's train for Ranger,
he'd be on it."
"And still my pulses do not leap."
"Wait! I got a sort of report on him and it's bad. I believe, and so does
the chief of police, that Mr. Mallow has something to do with the gang
of crooks that infests this country. One thing is certain, they're not the
native product, and our hold-ups aren't staged by rope-chokers out of
work."
Calvin Gray turned now and openly stared at the object of Coverly's
suspicions. There was an alert interest in his eyes. "You've cinched the
matter with me," he declared, after a moment. "Get out your diamonds
to-morrow; I'm going to take the night train to Ranger."
Later that evening, after his guest had gone, Gray took occasion
deliberately to put himself in Mallow's way and to get into conversation
with him. This was not a difficult maneuver, for it was nearly midnight
and the lobby was well-nigh deserted; moreover, it almost appeared as
if the restless Mr. Mallow was seeking an acquaintance.
For the better part of an hour the two men smoked and talked, and had
Coverly overheard their conversation his blood would have chilled and
he would have prematurely aged, for his distinguished host, Calvin
Gray, the worldly-wise, suave man of affairs, actually permitted
himself to be pumped like a farmer's son. It would have been a ghastly
surprise to the jeweler to learn how careless and how confiding his

friend could be in an off moment; he would have swooned when Gray
told about his coming trip to Ranger and actually produced the
misspelled Briskow letter for the edification of his chance acquaintance.
Any lingering doubt as to his friend's honesty of purpose would have
vanished utterly had he heard Mallow announce that he, too, was going
to Ranger, the very next night--a curious coincidence, truly--and Gray's
expression of pleasure at the prospect of such a congenial traveling
companion. The agitated Coverly no doubt would have phoned a
frantic call for the police, then and there.
Once Gray was in his rooms, however, his manner changed, and into
his eyes there came a triumphant glitter. Hastily he rummaged through
one of his bags, and from a collection of trinkets, souvenirs, and the
like he selected an object which he examined carefully, then took into
the bathroom for further experiment. His step was springy, his lips
were puckered, he was whistling blithely when he emerged, for at last
those vaguely outlined plans that had been at the back of his mind had
assumed form and pattern. His luck had turned, he had made a new
start. Mallow was indeed a crook, and Gray blessed the prompt good
fortune that had thrown both him and Coverly in his way.
It had been a busy day; he was well content with its fruitage.
CHAPTER III
Old Tom Parker was a "type." He was one of a small class of men at
one time common to the West, but now rapidly disappearing. A
turbulent lifetime spent in administering the law in a lawless region had
stamped him with the characteristics of a frontier officer--viz., vigilance,
caution, self-restraint, sang-froid. For more than thirty years he had
worn a badge of some sort and, in the serving of warrants and other
processes of