CHAPTER XVIII
WHEREIN MATTERS THICKEN
The stranger who had witnessed the trouble at Culver's office had comethere at the instance of McCoppet. It was, therefore, to McCoppet thathe carried the intelligence of what had taken place, so far as he hadseen.
The gambler was exceedingly pleased. That Culver would now be ready,as never before, to receive a proposition whereby the owners of the"Laughing Water" claim could be deprived of their ground, he was wellconvinced.
For reasons best known to himself and skillfully concealed from allacquaintances, McCoppet had remained practically in hiding since themoment in which he had beheld that half-breed Piute Indian in thesaloon. He remained out of sight even now, dispatching a messenger toCulver, in the afternoon, requesting his presence for a conference forthe total undoing of Van Buren.
Culver, who in ordinary circumstances might have refused this requestwith haughty insolence, responded to the summons rather sooner thanMcCoppet had expected. He was still red with anger, and meditatingpersonal violence to Van at the earliest possible meeting.
McCoppet, with his smokeless cigar in his mouth, and his great opalsentient with fire, received his visitor in the little private den towhich Bostwick had been taken.
"How are you, Culver?" he said off-handedly.
"I wanted to have a little talk. I sent a man up to your shop a whileago, and he told me you fired Van Buren out of the place on the run."
"That's nobody's business but mine," said Culver aggressively. "Ifthat is all you care to talk about----"
"Don't roil up," interrupted the gambler. "I don't even know what thefight was about, and I don't care a tinker's whoop either. I got youhere to give you a chance to put Van Buren out of commission and make alifetime winning."
Culver looked at him sharply.
"It must be something crooked."
"Nothing's crooked that works out straight," said McCoppet. "What'slife anyhow but a sure-thing game? It's stacked for us all to lose outin the end. What's the use of being finniky while we live--as long aseven the Almighty's dealing brace?"
Culver was impatient. "Well?"
"I won't beat around the chapparal," said McCoppet. "It ain't my way."Nevertheless, with much finesse and art he contrived to put hisproposition in a manner to rob it of many of its ugly features.However, he made the business plain.
"You see," he concluded, "the old reservation line might actually bewrong--and all you'd have to do would be to put it right. That's whatwe want--we want the line put right."
Culver was more angered than before. He understood the conspiracythoroughly. No detail of its cleverness escaped him.
"If you thought you could trade on my personal unpleasantness with anowner of the 'Laughing Water' claim," he said hotly, "you have made themistake of your life. I wish you good-day."
He rose to go. McCoppet rose and stopped him.
"Don't get feverish," said he. "It don't pay. I ain't requesting thisservice from you for just your feelings against a man. There's plentyin this for us all."
"You mean bribe money, I suppose," said Culver no less aggressivelythan before. "Is that what you mean?"
"Don't call it hard names," begged the gambler. "It's just aretainer--say twenty thousand dollars."
Culver burned to the top of his ears. He looked at McCoppet intentlywith an expression the gambler could not interpret.
"Just to change that line a thousand feet," urged the man of gamblingpropensities. "I'll make it twenty-five."
Still Culver made no response. With all his other hateful attributesof character he was tempered steel on incorruptibility. He was noteven momentarily tempted to avenge himself thus on Van Buren.
McCoppet thought he had him wavering. He attempted to push him overthe brink.
"Say," said he persuasively, lowering his voice to a tone of theconfidential, "I can strain a little more out of one of my partners andmake it thirty thousand dollars." He had no intention of employing acent of his own. Bostwick was to pay all these expenses. "Thirtythousand dollars, cash," he repeated, "the minute you finish yourwork--and make it look like a Government _correction_ of the line."
Culver broke forth on him with accumulated wrath.
"You damnable puppy!" he said in a futile effort to be adequate to thesituation. "You sneak! Of all the accursedintrigues--insults--robberies that ever were hatched---- By God, sir,if you offered me a million of money you shouldn't alter thatGovernment line by a hair! If you speak to me again--I'll knock youdown!"
He flung the door wide open, went out like a rocket, and bowled a manhalf over in his blind haste to be quit the place.
McCoppet was left there staring where he had gone--staring and afraidof what the results would probably be to all the game. He had no eyesto behold a man who had suddenly discerned him from the crowds. Amoment later he started violently as a huge form stood in the door.
"Trimmer!" he said, "I'm busy!"
"You're goin' to be busier in about a minute, if I don't see you rightnow," said the man addressed as Trimmer, a raw, bull-like lumbermanfrom the mountains. "Been waitin' to see you some time."
"Come in," said the gambler instantly regaining his composure. "Comein and shut the door. How are you, anyway?" He held out his hand toshake.
Trimmer closed the door. "Ain't ready to shake, jest yet," he said."I come here to see you on business."
"That's all right, Larry," answered McCoppet. "That's all right. Sitdown."
"I'm goin' to," announced his visitor. He took a chair, pulled out agiant cigar, and lighting it up smoked like a pile of burning leaves."You seem to be pretty well fixed," he added, taking a huge blackpistol from his pocket and laying it before him on the table. "Lookslike money was easy."
"I ain't busted," admitted the gambler. "Have a drink?"
"Not till we finish." The lumberman settled in his chair. "That wasthe way you got me before--and you ain't goin' to come it again."
McCoppet waited for his visitor to open. Trimmer was not in a hurry.He eyed the man across the table calmly, his small, shifting opticsdully gleaming.
Presently he said; "Cayuse is here in camp."
Cayuse was the half-breed Piute Indian whose company McCoppet hadavoided. Partially educated, wholly reverted to his Indian ways andtribal brethren, Cayuse was a singular mixture of the savage, pluscivilized outlooks and ethical standards that made him a dangerousman--not only a law unto himself, as many Indians are, but also astrange interpreter of the law, both civilized and aboriginal.
McCoppet had surmised what was coming.
"Yes--I noticed he was here."
"Know what he come fer?" asked the lumberman. "Onto his game?"
"You came here to tell me. Deal the cards."
Trimmer puffed great lungfuls of the reek from his weed and took hisrevolver in hand.
"Opal," said he, enjoying his moment of vantage, "you done me up for aclean one thousand bucks, a year ago--while I was drunk--and I've beenlaying to git you ever since."
McCoppet was unmoved.
"Well, here I am."
"You bet! here you are--and here you're goin' to hang out till we fixthings _right_!" The lumberman banged his gun barrel on the table hardenough to make a dent. "That's why Cayuse is here, too. Mrs. Cayuseis dead."
The gambler nodded coldly, and Trimmer went on.
"She kicked the bucket havin' a kid which wasn't Cayuse's--too darnwhite fer even him--and Cayuse is on the war trail fer that father."
McCoppet threw away his chewed cigar and replaced it with a fresh one.He nodded as before.
"Cayuse is on that I know who the father was," resumed the visitor. "Itold him to come here to Goldite and I'd give up the name."
He began to consume his cigar once more by inches and watched theeffect of his words. There was no visible effect. McCoppet had neverbeen calmer in his life--outwardly. Inwardly he had never felt Dearerto death, and his own kind of fright was u
pon him.
"Well," he said, "your aces look good to me. What do you want--howmuch?"
"I ought to hand you over to Cayuse--good riddance to the wholecountry," answered Trimmer, with rare perspicacity of judgment. "Youbet you're goin' to pay."
"If you want your thousand back, why don't you say so?" inquired thegambler quietly. "I'll make it fifteen hundred. That's pretty goodinterest, I reckon."
"Your reckoner's run down," Trimmer assured him. "I want ten thousanddollars to steer Cayuse away."
McCoppet slowly shook his head. "You ain't a hog, Larry, you're aRockyfeller. Five thousand, cash on the nail, if you show me you cansteer Cayuse so far off the trail he'll never get on it again."
Five thousand dollars was a great deal of money to Trimmer. Tenthousand was far in excess of his real expectations. But he saw thathis power was large. He was brutally frank.
"Nope, can't do it, Opal, not even fer a friend," and he grinned."I've got you in the door and I'm goin' to jamb you hard. Fivethousand ain't enough."
Things had been going against the gambler for nearly an hour. He hadbeen acutely alarmed by the presence of Cayuse in the camp. His mind,like a ferret in a trap, was seeking wildly for a loophole ofadvantage. Light came in upon him suddenly, with a thought of Culver,by whom, subconsciously, he was worried.
"How do you mean to handle the half-breed?" he inquired by way ofpreparing his ground. "You've promised to cough up a name."
Trimmer scratched his head with the end of his pistol.
"I guess I could tell him I was off--don't know the father after all."
"Sounds like a kid's excuse," commented McCoppet. "Like as not he'dtake it out of you."
The likelihood was so strong that Trimmer visibly paled.
"I've got to give him somebody's name," he agreed with alacrity. "Hasanyone died around here recent?"
"Yes," answered McCoppet with ready mendacity.
"Culver, who used to do surveying."
"Who?" asked Trimmer. "Don't know him."
McCoppet leaned across the table.
"Yes you do. He stopped you once from stealing--from picking up a lotof timber land. Remember?"
Trimmer was interested. His vindictive attributes were aroused.
"Was that the cuss? I never seen him. Do you think Cayuse would knowwho he was?--and believe it--the yarn?"
"Cayuse was once his chain-man." McCoppet was tremendously excited,though apparently as cold as ice, as he swiftly thought out theniceties of his own and fate's arrangements. "Cayuse's wife onceworked for Mrs. Culver, cooking and washing."
"Say, anybody'd swaller that," reflected the lumberman aloud. "Butfive thousand dollars ain't enough."
"I'll make it seven thousand five hundred--that's an even split,"agreed the gambler. He thought he foresaw a means whereby he couldsave this amount from the funds that Bostwick would furnish. He rosefrom his seat. "A thousand down, right now--the balance when Cayuse isgone, leaving me safe forever. You to give him the name right now."
Trimmer stood up, quenched the light on the stub of his cigar, andchewed up the butt with evident enjoyment.
"All right," he answered. "Shake."
Ten minutes later he had found Cayuse, delivered up the name agreedupon, and was busy spending his money acquiring a load of fiery drink.