"Let me get to him----," growled Coast, pushing close to the transmitter. "h.e.l.lo--Mike McGuire--h.e.l.lo----"

"He's gone," said Peter.

"'Let him go,'" sneered Coast. "You'd bet he'd let me go." Then he looked at Peter and laughed. "He's scared all right--beat it like a cottontail. Seems a shame to take the money, Pete--a real shame."

He laughed uproariously, then sauntered easily over to the table, took another of Peter's cigarettes and sank into the easy chair again. Peter eyed him in silence. He was an unwelcome guest but he hadn't yet gratified Peter's curiosity.

"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Peter.

"Me?" Coast inhaled Peter's cigarette luxuriously, and smiled. "I'm goin' West, _p.r.o.nto_--to get my facts straight--all at the expense of the party of the first part. I might stop off at the Grand Canon first for the view. I need a rest, Pete. I ain't as young as I was--or I mightn't of let you put me out so easy to-night. I'm glad of that, though. Wouldn't like to of done you hurt----"

"And then----?" asked Peter steadily.

"Then? Oh, I'll beat it down to Bisbee and ask a few questions. I just want to hook up a few things I _don't_ know with the things I _do_ know.

I'll travel light but comfortable. Five thousand dollars makes a heap of difference in your point of view--and other people's. I'll be an eastern millionaire lookin' for investments. And what I won't know about Jonathan K. McGuire, alias Mike McGuire--won't be worth knowin'." He broke off and his glance caught the interested expression on the face of his host.

"H-m. Curious, ain't you, Pete?"

"Yes," said Peter frankly. "I am. Of course it's none of my business, but----"

"But you'd like to know, just the same. I get you." He flicked off the ash of his cigarette and picked up his whisky gla.s.s. "Well----," he went on, "I don't see why I shouldn't tell you--some of it--that is. It won't do any harm for you to know the kind of skunk you're workin' for.

There's some of it that n.o.body on G.o.d's earth will ever know but me and Mike McGuire--unless he slips up on one of his payments, and then everybody's goin' to know. _Everybody_--but his daughter first of all."

Coast was silent a long moment while he drained the whisky and slowly set the gla.s.s down upon the table. The shadows upon his face were unpleasant, darkened perceptibly as they marked the years his thoughts followed, and the lines at his lips and nostrils became more deeply etched in bitterness and ugly resolve.

"It was down in the San Luis valley I first met up with Mike McGuire. He was born in Ireland, of poor but honest parents, as the books tell us.

He changed his name to 'Jonathan K.' when he made his first 'stake.'

That meant he was comin' up in the world--see? Me and Mike worked together up in Colorado, punchin' cattle, harvestin', ranchin'

generally. We were 'buddies,' _mon gars_, like you an' me, eatin', sleepin' together as thick as thieves. He had a family somewhere, same as me--the wife had a little money but her old man made him quit--some trouble. After awhile we got tired of workin' for wages, grub staked, and beat it for the mountains. That was back in nineteen one or two, I reckon. We found a vein up above Wagon Wheel Gap. It looked good and we staked out claims and worked it, hardly stoppin' to eat or sleep." Coast stopped with a gasp and a shrug. "Well, the long an' short of that, _mon vieux_, was a year of hard work with only a thousand or so apiece to show for it. It was only a pocket. h.e.l.l!" He broke off in disgust and spat into the fireplace. "Don't talk to me about your gold mines. There ain't any such animal. Well, Mike saved his. I spent mine. Faro. You know--an' women. Then I got hurt. I was as good as dead--but I pulled through. I ain't easy to kill. When I came around, I 'ch.o.r.ed' for a while, doin' odd jobs where I could get 'em and got a little money together and went to Pueblo. When I struck town I got pretty drunk and busted a faro bank. I never _did_ have any luck when I was sober."

"Yes, you've told me about that," said Peter.

"So I did--on the _Bermudian_. Well, it was at Pueblo I met up with Mike McGuire, and we beat it down into Arizona where the copper was. Bisbee was only a row of wooden shacks, but we got some backin', bought an outfit and went out prospectin' along the Mexican border. And what with 'greasers' and thievin' redskins it was some job in those days. But we made friends all right enough and found out some of the things we wanted to know.

"Now, Pete, if I was to tell you all that went on in that long trail into the Gila Desert and what happened when we got what we went for, you'd know as much as I do. You'd know enough to hold up Mike McGuire yourself if you'd a mind to. This is where the real story stops. What happened in between is my secret and Mike McGuire's. We found the mine we were lookin' for.... That's sure----How we got it you'll never know.

But we got it. And here's where the real story begins again. We were miles out in the Gila Desert and if ever there's a h.e.l.l on earth, it's there. Sand, rocks, rocks and sand and the sun. It was h.e.l.l with the cover off and no mistake! No water within a hundred miles.

"Now, this is where the fine Eyetalian hand of Mike McGuire shows itself. We were rich. Any fool with half an eye could see that. The place was lousy--fairly lousy! It was ours----," Coast's brow darkened and his eyes glittered strangely as a darting demon of the past got behind them. "Yes--_ours_. _Sacre bleu!_ Any man who went through what we did deserved it, by G----! We were rich. There was plenty enough for two, but McGuire didn't think so. And here's what he does to me. In the middle of the night while I'm asleep he sneaks away as neat as you please, with the horses and the pack-mules and the water, leavin' me alone with all the money in the world, and a devourin' thirst, more than a hundred miles from nowhere."

"Murder," muttered Peter.

Coast nodded. "You bet you. Murder. Nothin' less. Oh, he knew what _he_ was about all right. And I saw it quick. Death! That's what it meant.

Slow but sure. Hadn't I seen the bones bleaching all along the trail? He left me there to die. He thought I would die. _Dios!_ That thirst!"

Coast reached for the pitcher and splashed rather than poured a gla.s.s of water which he gulped down avidly. "There was nothin' for it but to try afoot for Tucson, which was due east. Every hour I waited would of made me an hour nearer to bein' a mummy. So I set out through the hot sand, the sun burnin' through me, slowly parchin' my blood. My tongue swelled.

I must of gone in circles. Days pa.s.sed--nights when I lay gaspin' on my back, like a fish out of water, tryin' to suck moisture out of dry air.... Then the red sun again--up over the edge of that furnace, mockin' at me. I was as good as dead and I knew it. Only the mummy of me, parched black, stumbled on, fallin', strugglin' up again, fallin' at last, bitin' at the sand like a mad dog...."

"Horrible," muttered Peter.

"It was. I reckon I died--the soul of me, or what was left of it. I came to life under the starlight, with a couple of 'greasers' droppin' water on my tongue. They brought me around, but I was out of my head for a week. I couldn't talk the lingo anyhow. I just went with 'em like a child. There wasn't anything else to do. Lucky they didn't kill me. I guess I wasn't worth killin'. We went South. They were makin' for Hermosillo. Revolutionists. They took all my money--about three hundred dollars. But it was worth it. They'd saved my life. But I couldn't go back now, even if I wanted to. I had no money, nor any way of gettin'

any."

Jim Coast leaned forward, glowering at the rag carpet.

"But I--I didn't want to go back just then. The fear of G.o.d was in me.

I'd looked into h.e.l.l."

He laughed bitterly.

"Then I joined the 'greasers' against Diaz. I've told you about that.

And the 'Rurales' cleaned us up all right. A girl saved my life. Instead of shootin' me against a mud wall, they put me to work on a railroad. I was there three years. I escaped at last and reached the coast, where I shipped for South America. It was the only way out, but all the while I was thinkin' of Mike McGuire and the copper mine. You know the rest, Pete--the Argentine deal that might of made me rich an' how it fell through. Don't it beat h.e.l.l how the world bites the under dog!"

"But why didn't you go back to America and fight your claim with McGuire?" asked Peter, aware of the sinister, missing pa.s.sage in the story.

Coast shot a sharp glance at his questioner.

"There were two reasons--one of which you won't know. The other was that I couldn't. I was on the beach an' not too popular. The only ships out of Buenos Aires were for London. That was the easiest way back to America anyhow. So I shipped as a cattle hand. And there you are. I lived easy in London. That's me. Easy come easy go. There it was I wrote a man I knew out in Bisbee--the feller that helped stake us--and he answered me that McGuire was dead, and that the mine was a flivver--too far away to work. You see he must of showed the letter to McGuire, and McGuire told him what to write. That threw me off the track. I forgot him and went to France...."

Coast paused while he filled his gla.s.s again.

"It wasn't until I reached New York that I found out McGuire was alive.

It was just a chance while I was plannin' another deal. I took it. I hunted around the brokers' offices where they sell copper stocks. It didn't take me long to find that my mine was the 'Tarantula.' McGuire had developed it with capital from Denver, built a narrow gauge in. Then after a while had sold out his share for more than half a million clear."

Peter was studying Coast keenly, thinking hard. But the story held with what he already knew of the man's history.

"That's when Mike McGuire tacked the 'Jonathan K.' onto his name," Coast went on. "And that money's mine, the good half of it. Figure it out for yourself. Say five hundred thou, eight per cent, fifteen years--I reckon I could worry along on that even if he wouldn't do better--which he will.

"Well, Pete--to shorten up--I found McGuire was here--in New York--and I laid for him. I watched for a while and then one day I got my nerve up and tackled him on the street. You ought to of seen his face when I told him who I was and what I'd come for. We were in the crowd at Broadway and Wall, people all about us. He started the 'high and mighty' stuff for a minute until I crumpled him up with a few facts. I thought he was goin' to have a stroke for a minute, when I made my brace for the five thou--then he turned tail and ran into the crowd pale as death. I lost him then. But it didn't matter. I'd find him again. I knew where his office was--and his hotel. It was dead easy. But he beat it down here.

It took me awhile to pick up the trail. But here I am, Pete--here I am--safe in harbor at last."

Coast took the bills out of his pocket and slowly counted them again.

"And when you come back from the West, what will you do?" asked Peter.

"Oh, now you're talkin', Pete. I'm goin' to settle down and live respectable. I like this country around here. I came from Jersey, you know, in the first place. I might build a nice place--keep a few horses and automobiles and enjoy my old age--run over to gay Paree once a year--down to Monte Carlo in the season. Oh, I'd know how to _live_ now.

You bet you. I've seen 'em do it--those swells. They won't have anything on me. I'll live like a prince----"

"On blackmail----," said Peter.

"See here, Pete----!"

"I meant it." Peter had risen and faced Coast coolly. "Blackmail! You can't tell me that if you had any legal claim on McGuire you couldn't prove it."

"I mightn't be able to----," he shrugged.

"What is McGuire frightened about? Not about what he owes you. He could pay that ten times over. It's something else--something that happened out there at the mine that you dare not tell----"

"That I _won't_ tell," laughed Coast disagreeably.

"That you _dare_ not tell--that McGuire dares not tell. Something that has to do with his strange message about the blood on the knife, and your placard about what you've got holding over him----"