Frontier Stories Part 52

"Did you see him?--in his room?" asked Rosey anxiously. Upon the answer to this simple question depended the future confidential relations of father and daughter. If her father had himself detected the means by which his lodger existed, she felt that her own obligations to secrecy had been removed. But Mr. Nott's answer disposed of this vain hope. It was a response after his usual fas.h.i.+on to the question he _imagined_ she artfully wished to ask, _i.e._ if he had discovered their rendezvous of the previous night. This it was part of his peculiar delicacy to ignore. Yet his reply showed that he had been unconscious of the one miserable secret that he might have read easily.

"I was there an hour or so--him and me alone--discussin' trade. I reckon he's got a good thing outer that curled horse-hair, for I see he's got in an invoice o' cus.h.i.+ons. I've stowed 'em all in the forrard bulkhead until he sends for 'em, ez Mr. Renshaw hez taken the loft."

But although Mr. Renshaw had taken the loft, he did not seem in haste to occupy it. He spent part of the morning in uneasily pacing his room, in occasional sallies into the street from which he purposelessly returned, and once or twice in distant and furtive contemplation of Rosey at work in the galley. This last observation was not unnoticed by the astute Nott, who at once conceiving that he was nouris.h.i.+ng a secret and hopeless pa.s.sion for Rosey, began to consider whether it was not his duty to warn the young man of her preoccupied affections. But Mr.

Renshaw's final disappearance obliged him to withhold his confidence till morning.

This time Mr. Renshaw left the s.h.i.+p with the evident determination of some settled purpose. He walked rapidly until he reached the counting-house of Mr. Sleight, when he was at once shown into a private office. In a few moments Mr. Sleight, a brusque but pa.s.sionless man, joined him.

"Well," said Sleight, closing the door carefully. "What news?"

"None," said Renshaw bluntly. "Look here, Sleight," he added, turning to him suddenly. "Let me out of this game. I don't like it."

"Does that mean you've found nothing?" asked Sleight, sarcastically.

"It means that I haven't looked for anything, and that I don't intend to without the full knowledge of that d--d fool who owns the s.h.i.+p."

"You've changed your mind since you wrote that letter," said Sleight coolly, producing from a drawer the note already known to the reader.

Renshaw mechanically extended his hand to take it. Mr. Sleight dropped the letter back into the drawer, which he quietly locked. The apparently simple act dyed Mr. Renshaw's cheek with color, but it vanished quickly, and with it any token of his previous embarra.s.sment.

He looked at Sleight with the convinced air of a resolute man who had at last taken a disagreeable step but was willing to stand by the consequences.

"I _have_ changed my mind," he said coolly. "I found out that it was one thing to go down there as a skilled prospector might go to examine a mine that was to be valued according to his report of the indications, but that it was entirely another thing to go and play the spy in a poor devil's house in order to buy something he didn't know he was selling and wouldn't sell if he did."

"And something that the man _he_ bought of didn't think of selling; something _he_ himself never paid for, and never expected to buy,"

sneered Sleight.

"But something that _we_ expect to buy from our knowledge of all this, and it is that which makes all the difference."

"But you knew all this before."

"I never saw it in this light before. I never thought of it until I was living there face to face with the old fool I was intending to overreach. I never was _sure_ of it until this morning, when he actually turned out one of his lodgers that I might have the very room I required to play off our little game in comfortably. When he did that, I made up my mind to drop the whole thing, and I'm here to do it."

"And let somebody else take the responsibility--with the percentage--unless you've also felt it your duty to warn Nott too,"

said Sleight with a sneer.

"You only dare say that to me, Sleight," said Renshaw quietly, "because you have in that drawer an equal evidence of my folly and my confidence; but if you are wise you will not presume too far on either.

Let us see how we stand. Through the yarn of a drunken captain and a mutinous sailor you became aware of an unclaimed s.h.i.+pment of treasure, concealed in an unknown s.h.i.+p that entered this harbor. You are enabled, through me, to corroborate some facts and identify the s.h.i.+p. You proposed to me, as a speculation, to identify the treasure if possible before you purchased the s.h.i.+p. I accepted the offer without consideration; on consideration I now decline it, but without prejudice or loss to any one but myself. As to your insinuation I need not remind you that my presence here to-day refutes it. I would not require your permission to make a much better bargain with a good-natured fool like Nott than I could with you. Or if I did not care for the business I could have warned the girl"--

"The girl--what girl?"

Renshaw bit his lip, but answered boldly: "The old man's daughter--a poor girl--whom this act would rob as well as her father."

Sleight looked at his companion attentively. "You might have said so at first, and let up on this camp-meetin' exhortation. Well then--admitting you've got the old man and the young girl on the same string, and that you've played it pretty low down in the short time you've been there--I suppose, d.i.c.k Renshaw, I've got to see your bluff.

Well, how much is it? What's the figure you and she have settled on?"

For an instant Mr. Sleight was in physical danger.

But before he had finished speaking Renshaw's quick sense of the ludicrous had so far overcome his first indignation as to enable him even to admire the perfect moral insensibility of his companion. As he rose and walked towards the door, he half wondered that he had ever treated the affair seriously. With a smile he replied:

"Far from bluffing, Sleight, I am throwing my cards on the table.

Consider that I've pa.s.sed out. Let some other man take my hand. Rake down the pot if you like, old man, _I_ leave for Sacramento to-night.

_Adios_."

When the door had closed behind him Mr. Sleight summoned his clerk.

"Is that pet.i.tion for grading Pontiac Street ready?"

"I've seen the largest property holders, sir; they're only waiting for you to sign first," Mr. Sleight paused and then affixed his signature to the paper his clerk laid before him. "Get the other names and send it up at once."

"If Mr. Nott doesn't sign, sir?"

"No matter. He will be a.s.sessed all the same." Mr. Sleight took up his hat.

"The Lascar seaman that was here the other day has been wanting to see you, sir. I said you were busy."

Mr. Sleight put down his hat. "Send him up."

Nevertheless Mr. Sleight sat down and at once abstracted himself so completely as to be apparently in utter oblivion of the man who entered. He was lithe and Indian-looking; bearing in dress and manner the careless slouch without the easy frankness of a sailor.

"Well!" said Sleight without looking up.

"I was only wantin' to know ef you had any news for me, boss?"

"News?" echoed Sleight as if absently; "news of what?"

"That little matter of the Pontiac we talked about, boss," returned the Lascar with an uneasy servility in the whites of his teeth and eyes.

"Oh," said Sleight, "that's played out. It's a regular fraud. It's an old forecastle yarn, my man, that you can't reel off in the cabin."

The sailor's face darkened.

"The man who was looking into it has thrown the whole thing up. I tell you it's played out!" repeated Sleight, without raising his head.

"It's true, boss--every word," said the Lascar, with an appealing insinuation that seemed to struggle hard with savage earnestness. "You can swear me, boss; I wouldn't lie to a gentleman like you. Your man hasn't half looked, or else--it must be there, or"--

"That's just it," said Sleight slowly; "who's to know that your friends haven't been there already--that seems to have been your style."

"But no one knew it but me, until I told you, I swear to G.o.d. I ain't lying, boss, and I ain't drunk. Say--don't give it up, boss. That man of yours likely don't believe it, because he don't know anything about it. I _do--I_ could find it."

A silence followed. Mr. Sleight remained completely absorbed in his papers for some moments. Then glancing at the Lascar, he took his pen, wrote a hurried note, folded it, addressed it, and, holding it between his fingers, leaned back in his chair.

"If you choose to take this note to my man, he may give it another show. Mind, I don't say that he _will_. He's going to Sacramento to-night, but you could go down there and find him before he starts.

He's got a room there, I believe. While you're waiting for him you might keep your eyes open to satisfy yourself."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the sailor, eagerly endeavoring to catch the eye of his employer. But Mr. Sleight looked straight before him, and he turned to go.

"The Sacramento boat goes at nine," said Mr. Sleight quietly.

This time their glances met, and the Lascar's eye glistened with subtle intelligence. The next moment he was gone, and Mr. Sleight again became absorbed in his papers.