CHAPTER XIX

FORTUNE KNOCKS AT THE DOOR

“I swan! what’s the matter, partner—my sakes; is it a _rattler_ you uncovered, I wanter know?”

Perk on his part was already sharing the excitement of his pal, although apparently from an entirely different reason. He had already started to scramble to his knees, being doubtless bent on taking some aggressive action, when he saw Jack reach forward and deliberately pluck some object from the hole under the displaced adobe fire brick, and hold it up to view.

As he saw its nature Perk’s jaw dropped, and he was the picture of abject astonishment—but it was far from being any poisonous reptile that Jack was thus exhibiting with such a grand flourish; just as though he might be some necromancer or magician, and drawing all manner of amazing things out of an apparently empty stove-pipe hat.

“Gosh-a-mighty! that looks like real money! I swan!” burst from Perk’s lips, as he continued to stare.

“Just what it’s supposed to be, Pal Perk,” said Jack, trying to keep his own voice from displaying a genuine tremolo—“a neat wad of it, waiting here for us to drop in and pick it up. Seems like things might be set up, like tenpins in the alley, for two lucky dogs to knock down with a couple of rolled balls.”

“If that don’t beat anything I ever did see,” continued the astounded Perk, now grinning, as though the pleasant nature of their find was commencing to appeal to him. “Jest think o’ a pair o’ air tramps ahappenin’ along, runnin’ across this here deserted shack, an’ findin’ a fortune askin’ to be taken care of—don’t it beat the Dutch what c’n happen—Arabian Night’s adventures can’t hold a candle to the real thing in these modern days. Some ol’ miser musta hid that boodle under the bricks, so’s to keep the Mex raiders comin’ up over the international border from gettin’ their itchin’ fingers on it—how ’bout that, Jack?”

“Off color, I’m afraid, Perk,” Jack told him, after taking a quick look at his wonderful find in the hearth _cache_; “that miser story might go with some but it doesn’t wash with me worth a red cent. In the first place if this money had been hidden here by a miser, he’d have taken it away with him when he cut stick. Then again it would surely have been partly in hard cash, like gold eagles, and such stuff—all hoards of misers, you remember, are made up like that, Perk, and when you give this the once-over you’ll also notice how it’s all in bills, mostly fresh ones at that, as if they hadn’t seen much circulation, as you might say.”

Perk drew in a long breath, and continued to stare hard at the object Jack was holding out in front of him; it might be that something in the other’s words and manner suggested certain possibilities that seemed almost too staggering for poor Perk to digest offhand.

“Gee whittiker jewsharps! Jack—what’s this you’re hintin’ at, ol’ pal—give it to me easy-like, so I c’n swaller it—all in bills—mostly fresh ones at that—not seen much handlin’ around—say, are you tryin’ to tell me they’re every one five dollar bills,—Jack?”

“I reckon that’s what they are, Perk, I’d say, from taking a quick look at the same.”

“Bad currency—counterfeits—bogus stuff, er—what?” gasped the other.

“Look for yourself, and you’ll recognize them as having been printed from the same plates as the one we’re carrying with us as a sample of Slippery Slim’s best work.”

“Je-ru-salem crickets! I’m knocked silly for a fact,” whimpered Perk; and then, as if mustering up his vanishing stamina he went on to add: “but however could they’ve got right there under that brick—conjurer’s black magic, looks like to me, partner, it sure does.”

“Nonsense! that part of it is easy enough to figure out,” asserted Jack, as usual very matter-of-fact; “the only thing that seems to border on the miraculous is our running across this packet of all the people in the Far West—it looks to me as if some sort of Destiny might be handling the cards—that all we have to do is to keep moving and everything’s bound to come our way.”

“Sure does seem like a snap, and that’s a fact,” agreed Perk, calming down a little as he began to grow more accustomed to the great discovery that had resulted from their deciding to drop down, and have a sociable cup of hot coffee; “but I’ll be danged if I c’n make head or tail out o’ this happening—now, what under the sun did anybody want to stick that wad o’ long green under the same adobes, I’d like to know, partner?”

“Oh! there might be any number of answers to that question, Perk; for instance didn’t we learn that it was the habit of Slim, or one of his busy bees, to jump across the border every little while with a load of the flimsy, and dole the stuff out to a number of agents he has working with him in this section of the country, also all the way over to Los Angeles and San Diego?”

“That was the spiel they gave us, for a fact, boss,” admitted Perk, wagging his head eagerly, as though he felt certain clever Jack would be able to figure things out, and hit on some sort of explanation that would cover these mysterious happenings.

“Well, this, then, might be one of his hidden _caches_—at certain times this unknown agent hides some _real_ money in such a hole as this, and comes along another dark night it might be to pick up the big wad that was left in exchange for the small one he contributed. And that is the way the game runs, so I was told.”

“By gum! but what grand luck for us to come in on this deal, Jack—pretty soft, I’d call it, and neither of us had any hand in it either—just hit on this little bank by sheer chance! Goin’ to crib the loot, are you, partner?”

Jack scratched his head as though certain plans were flitting through it, and he must make a choice.

“Well, we have to start somewhere, you understand, Perk, and it looks like the finger of Fate might be pointing right at this shack, and telling us to get busy and pick up a strong clue that, if followed up, would take us straight to that hideout Slim’s got across in Mexico.”

“Guess I see what you mean now, brother,” ventured Perk, his face lighting up with extreme joy; for he felt they were already on the track, and that from that hour there must be rapid action continuously. “If so be that ’ere critter that slams out these bills on greenhorns and come-ons is gettin’ anxious to see what sorter prize he’s drawn in the lottery, why, he might jest come along any ol’ time now, since the storm’s over an’ there’s nawthin’ to hold him up. Got any idea he’s nigh due here, partner?”

“Shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he walked in on us any time,” ventured Jack; and then, seeing the puzzled look on his chum’s rugged face he went on to add: “I didn’t mention the fact but while we were making our way over from the ship I felt certain I glimpsed several far-off lights, as if they might be in windows of cabins or houses of some sort. Then, too, I surely did hear a big dog barking, and something like a rooster crowing.”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered if you ain’t got sharper ears than I c’n boast, Jack, ol’ hoss, which ain’t no lie either.”

“Don’t you believe it, Perk; it just happened that you were so wrapped up in thinking of that coffee treat you didn’t pay as much attention to outside things as I did. So it seems as if there might be some kind of a village or prairie town not more than two miles from this abandoned old shack and if that’s so then the chances are this agent who’s been working the public for Slim probably lives there. Then again, like as not he has a pretty good idea about when his bunch of kale ought to be placed under that brick—in fact he might have made his way out here this very night only for the storm threatening.”

“Just so, partner,” Perk hastened to say, brimful of energy, “which, bein’ the case, it’s up to us to lay a sweet little mantrap, so’s to trip him by the heels if so be he knocks on our door. How’ll we fetch it, Jack?”

“First of all we’ll finish our supper, and clean up here,” came the ready explanation; “he may smell the odor of coffee and bacon, but then you might expect this shelter to be used once in a while by Mexican tramps, or passing cowboys, especially when a big storm threatens, so that isn’t going to scare the Johnny. As for us, we’ll fix things so as to give him a nice little surprise, by hiding out, after making things all dark inside here, with water thrown on the fire to smother the hot coals, after which there’s nothing to do but take things easy until he shows up—if he does.”

“I sabbe, okay, partner; let’s get busy, for the bacon’s done brown to a turn.”