The smile of Joe Rix was the smile of a diplomat. It could be maintained upon his face as unwaveringly as if it were wrought out of marble while Joe heard insult and lie. As a matter of fact Joe had smiled in the face of death more than once, and this is a school through which even diplomats rarely pass. Yet it was with an effort that he maintained the characteristic good-natured expression when the door to Donnegan's shack opened and he saw big George and, beyond him, Donnegan himself.
"Booze," said Joe Rix to himself instantly.
For Donnegan was a wreck. The unshaven beard--it was the middle of morning--was a reddish mist over his face. His eyes were sunken in shadow. His hair was uncombed. He sat with his shoulders hunched up like one who suffers from cold. Altogether his appearance was that of one whose energy has been utterly sapped.
"The top of the morning, Mr. Donnegan," said Joe Rix, and put his foot on the threshold.
But since big George did not move it was impossible to enter.
"Who's there?" asked Donnegan.
It was a strange question to ask, for by raising his eyes he could have seen. But Donnegan was staring down at the floor. Even his voice was a weak murmur.
"What a party! What a party he's had!" thought Joe Rix, and after all, there was cause for a celebration. Had not the little man in almost one stroke won the heart of the prettiest girl in The Corner, and also did he not probably have a working share in the richest of the diggings?
"I'm Joe Rix," he said.
"Joe Rix?" murmured Donnegan softly. "Then you're one of Lord Nick's men?"
"I was," said Joe Rix, "sort of attached to him, maybe."
Perhaps this pointed remark won the interest of Donnegan. He raised his eyes, and Joe Rix beheld the most unhappy face he had ever seen. "A bad hangover," he decided, "and that makes it bad for me!"
"Come in," said Donnegan in the same monotonous, lifeless voice.
Big George reluctantly, it seemed, withdrew to one side, and Rix was instantly in the room and drawing out a chair so that he could face Donnegan.
"I was," he proceeded "sort of tied up with Lord Nick. But"--and here he winked broadly--"it ain't much of a secret that Nick ain't altogether a lord any more. Nope. Seems he turned out sort of common, they say."
"What fool," murmured Donnegan, "has told you that? What ass had told you that Lord Nick is a common sort?"
It shocked Joe Rix, but being a diplomat he avoided friction by changing his tactics.
"Between you and me," he said calmly enough, "I took what I heard with a grain of salt. There's something about Nick that ain't common, no matter what they say. Besides, they's some men that nobody but a fool would stand up to. It ain't hardly a shame for a man to back down from 'em."
He pointed this remark with a nod to Donnegan.
"I'll give you a bit of free information," said the little man, with his weary eyes lighted a little. "There's no man on the face of the earth who could make Lord Nick back down."
Once more Joe Rix was shocked to the verge of gaping, but again he exercised a power of marvelous self control "About that," he remarked as pointedly as before, "I got my doubts. Because there's some things that any gent with sense will always clear away from. Maybe not one man--but say a bunch of all standin' together."
Donnegan leaned back in his chair and waited. Both of his hands remained drooping from the edge of the table, and the tired eyes drifted slowly across the face of Joe Rix.
It was obviously not the aftereffects of liquor. The astonishing possibility occurred to Joe Rix that this seemed to be a man with a broken spirit and a great sorrow. He blinked that absurdity away.
"Coming to cases," he went on, "there's yourself, Mr. Donnegan. Now, you're the sort of a man that don't sidestep nobody. Too proud to do it. But even you, I guess, would step careful if there was a whole bunch agin' you."
"No doubt," remarked Donnegan.
"I don't mean any ordinary bunch," explained Joe Rix, "but a lot of hard fellows. Gents that handle their guns like they was born with a holster on the hip."
"Fellows like Nick's crowd," suggested Donnegan quietly.
At this thrust the eyes of Joe narrowed a little.
"Yes," he admitted, "I see you get my drift."
"I think so."
"Two hard fighters would give the best man that ever pulled a gun a lot of trouble. Eh?"
"No doubt."
"And three men--they ain't any question, Mr. Donnegan--would get him ready for a hole in the ground."
"I suppose so."
"And four men would make it no fight--jest a plain butchery."
"Yes?"
"Now, I don't mean that Nick's crowd has any hard feeling about you, Mr. Donnegan."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"I knew you'd be. That's why I've come, all friendly, to talk things over. Suppose you look at it this way--"
"Joe Rix," broke in Donnegan, sighing, "I'm very tired. Won't you cut this short? Tell me in ten words just how you stand."
Joe Rix blinked once more, caught his breath, and fired his volley.
"Short talk is straight talk, mostly," he declared. "This is what Lester and the rest of us want--the mines!"
"Ah?"
"Macon stole 'em. We got 'em back through Landis. Now we've got to get 'em back through the colonel himself. But we can't get at the colonel while you're around."
"In short, you're going to start out to get me? I expected it, but it's kind of you to warn me."
"Wait, wait, wait! Don't rush along to conclusions. We ain't so much in a hurry. We don't want you out of the way. We just want you on our side."
"Shoot me up and then bring me back to life, eh?"
"Mr. Donnegan," said the other, spreading out his hands solemnly on the table, "you ain't doin' us justice. We don't hanker none for trouble with you. Any way it comes, a fight with you means somebody dead besides you. We'd get you. Four to one is too much for any man. But one or two of us might go down. Who would it be? Maybe the Pedlar, maybe Harry Masters, maybe Lester, maybe me! Oh, we know all that. No gunplay if we can keep away from it."
"You've left out the name of Lord Nick," said Donnegan.
Joe Rix winked.
"Seems like you tended to him once and for all when you got him alone in this cabin. Must have thrown a mighty big scare into him. He won't lift a hand agin' you now."
"No?" murmured Donnegan hoarsely.
"Not him! But that leaves four of us, and four is plenty, eh?"
"Perhaps."
"But I'm not here to insist on that point. No, we put a value on keepin' up good feeling between us and you, Mr. Donnegan. We ain't fools. We know a man when we see him--and the fastest gunman that ever slid a gun out of leather ain't the sort of a man that me and the rest of the boys pass over lightly. Not us! We know you, Mr. Donnegan; we respect you; we want you with us; we're going to have you with us."
"You flatter me and I thank you. But I'm glad to see that you are at last coming to the point."
"I am, and the point is five thousand dollars that's tied behind the hoss that stands outside your door."
He pushed his fat hand a little way across the table, as though the gold even then were resting in it, a yellow tide of fortune.
"For which," said Donnegan, "I'm to step aside and let you at the colonel?"
"Right."
Donnegan smiled.
"Wait," said Joe Rix. "I was makin' a first offer to see how you stood, but you're right. Five thousand ain't enough and we ain't cheapskates. Not us. Mr. Donnegan, they's ten thousand cold iron men behind that saddle out there and every cent of it belongs to you when you come over on our side."
But Donnegan merely dropped his chin upon his hand and smiled mirthlessly at Joe Rix. A wild thought came to the other man. Both of Donnegan's hands were far from his weapons. Why not a quick draw, a snap shot, and then the glory of having killed this manslayer in single battle for Joe Rix?
The thought rushed red across his brain and then faded slowly. Something kept him back. Perhaps it was the singular calm of Donnegan; no matter how quiet he sat he suggested the sleeping cat which can leap out of dead sleep into fighting action at a touch. By the time a second thought had come to Joe Rix the idea of an attack was like an idea of suicide.
"Is that final?" he asked, though Donnegan had not said a word.
"It is."
Joe Rix stood up.
"You put it to us kind of hard. But we want you, Mr. Donnegan. And here's the whole thing in a nutshell. Come over to us. We'll stand behind you. Lord Nick is slipping. We'll put you in his place. You won't even have to face him; we'll get rid of him."
"You'll kill him and give his place to me?" asked Donnegan.
"We will. And when you're with us, you cut in on the whole amount of coin that the mines turn out--and it'll be something tidy. And right now, to show where we stand and how high we put you, I'll let you in on the rock-bottom truth. Mr. Donnegan. out there tied behind my saddle there's thirty thousand dollars in pure gold. You can take it in here and weigh it out!"
He stepped back to watch this blow take effect. To his unutterable astonishment the little man had not moved. His chin still rested upon the back of his hand, and the smile which was on the lips and not in the eyes of Donnegan remained there, fixed.
"Donnegan," muttered Joe Rix, "if we can't get you, we'll get rid of you. You understand?"
But the other continued to smile.
It gave Joe Rix a shuddering feeling that someone was stealing behind him to block his way to the door. He cast one swift glance over his shoulder and then, seeing that the way was clear, he slunk back, always keeping his face to the red-headed man. But when he came to the doorway his nerve collapsed. He whirled, covered the rest of the distance with a leap, and emerged from the cabin in a fashion ludicrously like one who has been kicked through a door.
His nerve returned as soon as the sunlight fell warmly upon him again; and he looked around hastily to see if anyone had observed his flight.
There was no one on the whole hillside except Colonel Macon in the invalid chair, and the colonel was smiling broadly, beneficently. He had his perfect hands folded across his breast and seemed to cast a prayer of peace and goodwill upon Joe Rix.
