The Bad Man Part 25

"_Si._ Is it so agree?"

"I'm for that," Pell said.

"But I--" Hardy began.

"I bid one hundred thousand dollars," Pell quickly cried.

"I'll take it to the courts," Hardy contended.

"Take what to the courts?" Pell wanted to know.

"I was detained by force," Hardy said.

"As long as I get there by eight, what difference does that make?" Pell asked.

But Lopez broke in: "One hundred sousand I am offer!" They mustn't shillyshally this way. He wanted to keep things going.

"I'll make it one hundred and one!" Hardy cried.

Without a moment's hesitation, Pell jerked it up to a hundred and ten.

"A hundred and eleven!" Hardy pushed ahead.

"A hundred and twenty-five!" Pell yelled. "And what do you know about that?"

Hardy was by no means finished. "A hundred and thirty!" he made it.

Uncle Henry couldn't stand it. While they raised each other's bids, he shot in between them and managed to say above the din, "And me--gettin' skinned not only out of my ten thousand, but a million dollars besides!"

"A hundred and fifty!" Pell was saying.

"A hundred and fifty-one!" the cautious Hardy added.

The face of Lopez was a study; but they were so excited that they did not look at him. Angela rushed to her father and clasped his arm when she heard his last raise. "That's right, father. Don't let him get it!"

"Don't worry," he rea.s.sured her, and patted her little hand, so warm on his arm. He turned to Pell. "You city fellers needn't think you can come down here and put it all over us."

"Nevertheless," said Morgan Pell, "I'll just bid a hundred and seventy-five thousand."

"Then I'll make it a hundred and eighty!" his antagonist stated.

Quick as a flash, "A hundred and ninety," Pell said.

"Two hundred, by darn!" yelled Hardy, furious now.

"Two hundred and--" Pell began; when Lopez, to their amazement, rapped on the table with his gun, as though he were an auctioneer and this his gavel, "Senors!" he shouted. "It is enough!"

Everyone was dumbfounded, "Enough?" Hardy inquired, unbelieving.

"Too much!" Lopez explained.

"What's the idea?" Pell, shrewder than before, wanted to know. His brow contracted. So there was a fly in the ointment, after all!

"Ze idea, my friend, is zis," Lopez calmly stated. "I am not interest in pieces of paper. I do not accep' checks. Also I am no d.a.m.n fool! You sink I sink you bring back two 'ondred sousand dollar? Two 'ondred sousand soldier, mebbe! But two 'ondred sousand dollar! Pah!" and he made a gesture of disgust, and crushed the paper in his hand and let it fall on the floor under the table.

"Then what's the idea of this auction in the first place?" Pell asked, mad through and through that they had been tricked by this Mexican fool.

Lopez leaned back on the table. "To find out if you gentlemen was rich enough to make it worth my w'ile to take you wiz me and 'old you for ransom." His eyes half closed. He was enjoying their discomfiture. There was nothing he liked more than to spring a surprise like this.

Pell and Hardy looked at each other, real terror in their faces now.

"Ransom!" the former cried.

"It is quite to be seen zat you are," the bandit grinned. "Zis, if I may speak so, 'as been a lucky day for me!"

Pell turned to both Hardy and Lopez, and addressed them: "Bluffing, were you?"

Lopez was quick to retort: "And was you bluffing when you bidded ze two 'ondred sousand dollars?"

Hardy was agitated. "I'm afraid we were a bit hasty," he tried to explain things away.

This tickled Uncle Henry's b.u.mp of humor. He chuckled, and cried, "Ho, ho!

Serves you both gol darn good and right!" He seemed to go into a spasm of laughter.

Pell's chief concern now was to get out of the mess--to get away; to have everything settled. Lopez could probably be dealt with, man to man.

"Look here," he suggested, in a direct attack, "can't we settle things some way?"

"Yes," the bandit replied. "From my headquarters in Chihuahua I will give you pen, ink, messenger-boy--everysing!"

"But I--" Pell started to say.

But Lopez broke in: "You will please listen more and speak less. I 'ave decide. You I shall 'old for ransom. And," turning to Hardy, "you; and you," pointing to Uncle Henry, "you who 'ave nossing, I shall leave be'ind."

Pell and Hardy felt that the game was over.

Uncle Henry, on the contrary, was jubilant. "Gee!" he sang out, "and I get the oil, after all!"

No one heeded him. Things were too serious still.

"You wouldn't do this?" Hardy asked of Lopez.

"No?" the bandit asked.

Hardy took Angela in his arms. "But what about her--my daughter? You wouldn't take her, would you?"

"Not for a million dollars!" Lopez smiled.

Angela's pride was hurt, "H'm!" she sniffed.