"You got me that time," said Orcutt. "Here's the coin."
"Shall we sit down here?" asked Winthrop, indicating one of the tables.
"Sure! Now this ain't no frame-up. No, I'll set where I can watch Sweeney. He's like to steal his own cash-register if you don't watch him." And Winthrop noticed that his companion faced the door. He also noticed, as the man's coat brushed against a chair as he sat down, that that same coat covered a shiny black shoulder holster in which gleamed the worn butt of an automatic pistol.
"My real name is Jack Summers," began Overland Red. "Some folks took to callin' me 'Overland Red,' seein' as I been some towerist in my time."
"Great!" murmured the Easterner. "'Overland Red!' That name has me hypnotized."
"Beg your pardon. Nothing worth while. I haven't been so happy for a year. Let me explain. I have a little money, pretty well invested. I also have lungs, I believe. The doctors don't quite agree about that, however. The last one gave me six months to live. That was a year ago. I owe him an apology and six months. I'm not afraid, exactly, and I'm certainly not glad. But I want to forget it. That's all. Go ahead about that desert and the gold. I'm listening."
"PERFECTLY HARMLESS LITTLE OLE TENDERFOOT"
William Stanley Winthrop woke next morning with a vague impression of having lost something. He gazed indolently at the sunlight filtering through the curtains of his sleeping-room. Beyond the archway to the adjoining room of his suite, a ray of sunshine lay like living gold upon the soft, rich-hued fabric of the carpet.
"Gold!" he murmured. "Mojave Desert! Overland Red! Lost gold! No, it isn't the two hundred dollars I invested in the rascal's story, for it was worth the money. I never spent four happier hours in my life, at fifty dollars an hour. The best of it is he actually made me believe him. I think he believed himself."
Winthrop sat up in bed, yawning. "I think black coffee will be about all, this morning," he murmured, as he dressed leisurely.
He was tying a fastidiously correct bow on his tan oxford when he happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel. Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy, shaggy burros followed a little, lean old man, whose flop-brimmed hat, faded shirt, and battered boots told a tale of the outlands, whispered of sun-swept immensities, of sage and cacti, sand and silence. Winthrop drew a long breath. Such an adventurer was the Overland Red he had talked with the evening previous. The tramp had mentioned a town far out on the desert. Winthrop sauntered down to the deserted office and secured a timetable.
