"Money won't tempt me," he said doggedly, "although God knows I need
it. You pulled a gun on him, and he didn't have any that I could see.
That young feller took my name and number. He'd catch me in the lie,
sure as shootin'. And, say, they sent a couple of guys up for perjury
just last week, pals of mine, they were. Not for me, guv'nor. I'll
stick to the truth, just to see how it feels."
"But the man has sworn to kill me!"
"You pulled a gun on him," retorted the driver surlily. "I don't like
that kind of business. And I guess, if they happen to ask me, I'll just
mention that you tried to buy me off, too. Ta-ta! Maybe I'll see you
later." And away he went, less virtuous than nature intended him to be,
but wholly satisfied that he possessed a conscience, after all.
The Colonel, grim and furtive, accompanied Roberta to the station and
saw her safely off. By three or four o'clock in the afternoon he began
to feel reasonably certain that Jenison had failed in his attempt to
secure a warrant, or had been turned from his purpose by that
cool-headed, far-seeing woman, Mary Braddock. He remained in his rooms,
disdaining flight or subterfuge. All through the long, hot afternoon,
he paced the floor or sat in the windows, nervously awaiting the
descent of the officers. They did not come. His spirits took wing again
as the close of the day drew down upon him. He had waited, with all the
stoicism of the born gambler, for the crash and it had not come; he had
taken the chance; to use his own expression, he "stood pat."
At six o'clock he threw away his half-smoked cigar and sauntered forth
from the hotel. The Colonel was very punctilious in that respect: he
made it a point not to smoke in the street.
Although he was now quite comfortably sure that there was no immediate
danger of arrest, he still was confronted by the ugly certainty that
Tom Braddock was hard upon his heels and that no amount of persuasion
could have turned him from his purpose. His blood went cold from time
to time when he permitted himself to recall the set, implacable
expression in the man's face, and the tigerish strength that marked
every repressed movement of his body. Robert Grand knew that Braddock's
sole object in life now was to kill him. He knew that the meeting could
not long be deferred; and when it came, he would not have one chance in
a thousand against this wily, determined giant. Braddock would
accomplish his end, of that he was as sure as he was certain that the
sun would rise in the morning. It was in the cards. He knew. He was a
true-born gambler, with all the instincts, all the wiles, all the
insight of one who courts Chance and fights it at the same time. Such
men as Robert Grand go on defying Fate to the bitter end, but they know
that there will be an end, and in the end they are bound to lose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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