Gangway!

    "Even out on the frontier," Francis said sadly, "men are full of hypocrisy."

    "Yeah, probably."

    At that point the waiter finally came back with the drinks and thudded them onto the table, one by one. Then he stood there waiting.

    Francis looked at Gabe and saw Gabe looking back at him. He looked at the girl, and she too was looking at him. Even the waiter was looking at him.

    "Oh, dear," Francis said.

    "I thought so," the waiter said.

    Francis felt terribly embarrassed. "Gabe, I thought… Well, I did tell you we'd been closed down, I thought you understood, uh…"

    Gabe said, without expression, "You don't have any money."

    "I've been in dreadful financial shape these past few weeks."

    "Right," the waiter said. He started putting the drinks back on the tray.

    "Hold it, you," Gabe said. He produced a wallet from his overstuffed pockets, turned it around a bit in his hands as though unfamiliar with how to get into it, and then slid a bill at the waiter. Francis caught a flash of a five-dollar greenjacket.

    After the waiter had made change and gone heavily away, Francis said, "The worst of it is, I wouldn't be in this awkward condition if it weren't for some utter scoundrels who lied to me."

    "Is that so," Gabe said.

    "But it did seem such a marvelous opportunity at the time," Francis insisted. "I couldn't pass it up, you know. I mean, you could actually see the glinting veins of it on the surface of the shaft wall."

    The girl gave him a look. "You bought a gold mine."

    Francis nodded. "Like a fool I trusted them. Well, one in particular. I couldn't believe that after… well, I just didn't think he'd treat me that way."

    "They'd salted it?"

    "Not really. They'd played the mine out, that's all. A few traces of gold left, but they'd emptied out all the worthwhile ore. It's nothing but a gutted hole in the hillside now. And like a fool I sank all my savings in it, only to find it's as empty as a drummer's promises."

    Gabe lifted his glass and Francis caught a hard gleam in his eye. "Anyhow," Gabe said, "here's to gold. Lots of gold."

    "Oh my, yes," Francis agreed.

    The girl gave Gabe a bit of a mulish look, he noticed, but she drank.

    Gabe leaned closer to Francis. "Listen, do you know many guys around this burg?"

    "Why old cock, I know everybody, just everybody."

    "Well, I'm looking into something big, and I might need some good people to help out."

    Francis smiled. "Just like the old days."

    "Um," said Gabe.

    The girl gave Gabe a suspicious look and said, "Is it still that same idea?"

    "Sure," he said. "I didn't use it up yet."

    "Well, I wish you would," she said. "You're just going to go along bullheaded and not listen to anybody else that knows more about things around here than you do. The first thing you know you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble."

    Gabe tucked his head down in like a man who's made a conscious decision to be stubborn and said, "I know what I'm doing."

    Alarmed on Gabe's behalf, Francis turned to the girl and said, "Is it really dangerous?"

    Now she too was looking stubborn. "Dangerous," she echoed. "It's goddam stupid, is what it is."

    "We'll see about that," Gabe said.

    Francis touched the girl's wrist. "My dear," he said, "you can't stop a man if he's determined to go ahead and do something. Believe me I've tried, and it just can't be done."

    "Don't I know it," she said. "You can talk yourself blue in the face."

    "Exactly," Francis said, in long-suffering sympathy.

    Their eyes met, with identical rueful expressions. They lifted their Pink Ladies and smiled at one another in perfect warmth and understanding. She was, he realized, much better than he had at first thought.

    Across the room a cattleman in a huge hat turned his head and spat something into a bell-mounted brass-bellied spittoon. The clang echoed throughout the ornate room. Francis winced.

    Gabe said, "Francis, you want to keep in touch with me."

    "Where are you staying?"

    Gabe and the girl looked at each other. Francis couldn't quite fathom the expression that passed between them. Finally Gabe said, "Well we'll be around, one place and another. Where can I reach you?"

    "I have a room on Kearny Street. Twenty-eight and a half. I have the entire top floor."

    The girl said, "I imagine it's fixed up grand."

    "Well, a few touches perhaps."

    Gabe was pouring himself another whisky, distracted evidently by private thoughts. Francis sought to revive the conversation; gold had been mentioned and he wanted to dwell on that, but there was something else to be covered. "You certainly are a long way from home, old cock," he said.

    "Yeah. So are you."

    "To be sure. The difference being, I can go back."

    He let it drop in a very casual tone, watching closely as Gabe picked it up and examined it.

    Finally Gabe said, "I don't believe it."

    The girl looked at him. "You don't believe what?"

    Gabe ignored her. He put his glass of whisky down and faced Francis with an I-should-have-known nod. "So Twill got in touch with you."

    "I've never been so surprised as when I got his telegram," Francis said. "I mean, he's hardly my type, old Patrick Twill." He screwed up his face and shivered. "Fat ugly old…"

    "Twill," Gabe said, pronouncing the word as if it were chipped out of hard steel.

    Francis turned both palms up on the table. "I thought I should be open and aboveboard about it, Gabe old cock. I'm not concealing anything from you."

    "What about it then?"

    "He wired me. Just said he wanted to know if I was still in San Francisco, because there would be a bit of money in it if I replied to his wire. So I did, seeing no harm in it. Behold, there came a second telegram from Twill. He wired me twenty-five dollars, of which I was sorely in need at that particular juncture. He said I would receive an additional fifty dollars if I would watch for your arrival and wire him as soon as you appeared."

    "And?"

    "And what?"

    "That's not all of it, Francis."

    "Well, there was only one further instruction. If you left San Francisco with any evident intention of returning East, I was to wire him again and advise him of your approach. For this of course I would receive a further reward."

    "And did you wire him when I arrived?"

    "Certainly. I watched the arrivals today and saw you come ashore. I went to the telegraph office immediately and sent the wire. Unfortunately by the time I returned to the docks you had disappeared, and I've been looking for you ever since."

    "To tell me about Twill?"

    "Well, not entirely. I mean you are one of my very dearest friends, old cock."

    "Yeah."

    "Have I done something wrong?"

    "I guess not," Gabe said. "But one of these days I'm going back East, Francis, and I'm going to jerk that Persian carpet right out from under Fat Pat Twill. When I do I don't want any telegraph messages going out to warn him I'm coming back. You got that clear?"