"I saw by the back of your neck that you had
something on your mind. What's the matter, Bill? Don't you think the
old town needs taking apart?"
"Oh, it needs it, all right. But it's too big a job for one man to
tackle. You leave that to Daddy Time; he's the only reformer--"
"Say, Bill, I never attempted to reform anybody or anything in my
life; I'd hate to begin with a job the size of this." He waved his
cigarette toward the shifting crowd. "But I do think--"
"And right there's where you make a big mistake. You don't want to
think! Or if you do, don't think out loud; not where such men as Swift
and Rawhide and the Captain can hear you. That's what I mean, Jack."
Jack eyed him with a smile in his eyes. "Some men might think you were
afraid of that bunch," he observed with characteristic bluntness. "I
know you aren't, and so I don't see why you want me to be. You know,
and I know, that the Vigilance Committee has turned rotten to the
core; every decent man in San Francisco knows it. You know that Sandy
killed that Spaniard in self-defense--or if you didn't see the fracas,
I tell you now that he did; I saw the whole thing. You know, at any
rate, that the Vigilantes took him out and hung him because they
wanted to get rid of him, and that came the nearest to an excuse they
could find. You know--"
"Oh, I know!" Bill's voice was sardonic. "I know they'll be going
around with a spy-glass looking for an excuse to hang you, too, if you
don't quit talking about 'em.
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