The Bad Man Part 37

Not a word more was said. Pell took out his own handkerchief, and started to dip it in the bowl of water. But he was shaking still, and the piece of linen dropped to the floor. He stooped to pick it up. As he did so, he saw, in the dim light, the option lying exactly where Pancho Lopez had tossed it. He grasped it in his hand, crushed and crumpled as it was, and thought no one had observed him. But Uncle Henry's eagle eye had seen his movement.

"What's that?" he called out.

Pell tried to seem unconcerned. "The option, my dear sir," he answered truthfully.

"By gollies, he's got it again!" Uncle Henry yelled, in desperation. He switched his chair around, and faced Gilbert. "Why didn't you tear it up while he was dead?" he asked.

Pell addressed Uncle Henry. "You've got ten thousand dollars of my money,"

he firmly said.

"_I_ have?"

"I want it," was the other's immediate reply.

"It was paid me for a debt," the old man said.

"It was stolen from me first," Morgan Pell stated, calmly. "Come across."

He put one hand out. The other still held the cloth to his wounded forehead.

"I'll be cussed if I will!" the invalid cried. He clapped his hands over his vest pocket, where the money was safely hidden.

"Why, you poor old crook--" Pell began, rose, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the money from Uncle Henry before anyone knew what he was doing. All his old fire was back. He seemed the most alive man in the room.

Uncle Henry cried out, wildly, "Hey, ain't there no Americans present?" He saw Gilbert's gun which was on the seat beneath the stairway. He was close enough to grasp it. He did so, pointed it at the room in general, and yelled, "Now I got yuh! Hands up, everybody!"

But no one moved. A disdainful silence followed. "Didn't yuh hear what I said?" Uncle Henry inquired, looking at everybody.

"Put that down," said Hardy contemptuously. "You might hurt somebody," he added, smiling.

"Ain't yuh goin' to do it?" Uncle Henry asked.

"As I was going to say--" Hardy started, when Uncle Henry interrupted him with:

"But it was what _he_ done!"

"Who?" asked Hardy.

"The bandit," Uncle Henry answered.

"Will you keep still?" Hardy urged.

"Certainly not!" Uncle Henry went on. "I got a gun here and I--"

Hardy reached for the weapon. "I'm holdin' you up, gol darn it!" Jasper Hardy took the gun as he would have taken a bag of peanuts from a child, and handed it to Gilbert with a wink.

"Hey! You can't do that!" wailed the invalid. He wheeled his chair toward his nephew. "You wouldn't do that if my friend Lopez was here, you big b.u.m!" he ended, as peevish as an infant.

Pell turned upon his wife. "Well, my dear--" he began, and once more his lips curled at the irony of the last phrase.

"What!" Lucia said; and there was terror in her voice.

Pell did not mince words. "Having both the Option and a clearer understanding of each other, there's nothing to detain us." He measured everything he uttered, and watched the effect upon her.

"It's no use," Hardy broke in. "You're too late."

"Not if I got there by eight o'clock," Pell said.

"But you won't!" Jasper Hardy quickly said, glancing at the clock which ticked on, inexorably.

Pell pulled out his watch. Then he looked at the option, deliberately, carefully, and seemed to read a final sentence. Having done so, he tore the piece of paper to bits slowly, and scattered them on the floor at his feet.

At that very instant the clock struck eight.

"It's eight o'clock!" "Red" exclaimed on the last peal of the bell.

"Eight o'clock!" Hardy cried. "And the place belongs to me!" He turned to Pell. "Anything more from you?" he inquired, and smiled.

The other stared at him; but he said nothing. Instead, he went over again to the table, and wet his handkerchief in the bowl, again refusing Lucia's proffered a.s.sistance with a wave of his other hand. He bathed his own wound. And meanwhile Hardy was saying to Gilbert:

"Well, young feller, it's your move."

"His move!" "Red" repeated the phrase. "Say, you wouldn't go and skin him out of the place all over again, would you?"

Hardy sneered. "I'm going to foreclose, certainly, if that's what you mean, you impudent young scoundrel!"

"You mean you would trim him again?" "Red" didn't believe it.

"Say, boy, you better use your head. You're going to marry my darter, ain't you?"

"Yes--I hope so," the foreman said.

"Well, don't you realize that all I got will eventually go to you and her?

Don't you?"

"It will?" asked the incredulous "Red."

"Certainly; when I die," answered Hardy.

"I hope it'll be soon!" cried out Uncle Henry. Then, to "Red," "Don't you see he's leading you up to the top o' that gol darn mountain?"

"Red" did not understand. "Gol darn _what_?" he said.

Uncle Henry was exasperated at his stupidity. "Why, he's temptin' you, the old devil! Don't let him. It's a gol darn shame," he added, turning his chair so that he faced Hardy, "an old scoundrel like you tryin' to corrupt a nice young feller like him! Don't you know money you get like that won't do you no good?"

"It's his--Gilbert Jones's," cried "Red," "and I ain't goin' to be party to robbin' him of it!"

"Hooray!" yelled Uncle Henry. "That's the boy! I knew you was like that.

You're all right!" And he backed into the alcove, happier than he had been in a long time.