"
Jack smiled and so let a thin ribbon of smoke float up and away from
his lips.
Bill saw the smile and flushed a little; but he was not to be laughed
down, once he was fairly started. He laid two well-kept fingers upon
the other's arm and spoke soberly, refusing to treat the thing as
lightly as the other was minded to do.
"Oh, you'll laugh, but it's a fact, and you know it. Why, ain't
Sandy's case proof enough that I'm right? I heard you telling a crowd
in there last night--" Bill tilted his head backward towards the room
behind them--"that this law-and-order talk is all a farce. What if it
is? It don't do any good for you to bawl it out in public and get the
worst men in the Committee down on you, does it?
"What you'd better do, Jack, is go on down to Palo Alto where your
pardner is. He's got some sense. I wouldn't stay in the darned town
overnight, the way they're running things now, if it wasn't for my
business. Ever since they made Tom Perkins captain there's been hell
to pay all round. I can hold my own; I'm up where they don't dare
tackle me; but you take a fool's advice and pull out before the
Captain gets his eagle eye on you. Talk like you was slinging around
last night is about as good a trouble-raiser as if you emptied both
them guns of yours into that crowd out there."
"You're asking me to run before there's anything to run away from."
Jack's lips began to show the line of stubbornness.
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