own have been touchin' me up purty hard. I guess this here New York
game ain't exactly my game. I'm aimin' to close up what little deals
I've still got on here and beat it back to God's country while I've
still got a shirt on my back. I'm much obliged to you, Markham, for
wantin' to take me into your scheme. It sounds good the way you tell it,
but it seems like ever'thing round this burg sounds good till you test
it out--and so I guess you better count me out and find yourself a
partner somewheres else."

There was definiteness in his refusal; the shake of his head emphasized
it too. Marr's role should have been the persuasive, the insistent, the
argumentative, the cajoling; but Marr was distinctly out of temper.

Here he had ventured into danger to play for a fat purse and all he
would get for his trouble and his pains and the risk he had run would
be just those things--pains and trouble and risk--these, and nothing
more nourishing.

"Oh, very well then, Hartridge," he said angrily, "if you haven't any
confidence in me--if you can't see that this is a play that naturally
can't go wrong--why, we'll let it drop."

"Oh, I've got confidence in you--" began Hartridge, but Marr, no
patience left in him, cut him short.

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" he snapped. "Forget it! Let's talk about
the weather."

He lifted his straw hat as though to ease its pressure upon his head and
then settled it well down over his eyes. This was the sign to the
Gulwings' messenger, watching him covertly from behind a newspaper over
on the far side of the lobby, that the plan had failed. The signal he
had so confidently expected to give--a trick of relighting his cigar and
flipping the match into the air--would have conveyed to the watcher the
information that all augured well. The latter's job then would have been
to get up from his chair and step outside and bear the word to Sig
Gulwing, who, letter-perfect in the part of the conspiring telegraph
manager, would promptly enter and present himself to Marr, and by Marr
be introduced to the Westerner. The hat-shifting device had been devised
in the remote contingency of failure on Marr's part to win over the
chosen victim. Plainly the collapse of the plot had been totally
unexpected by the messenger. Over his paper he stared at Marr until
Marr repeated the gesture. Then, fully convinced now that there had been
no mistake, the messenger arose and headed for the door, the whole
thing--signaling,