“What is there to compromise?  We have nothing to contribute.”

“We have safety to sell,” said Eric.  “Seek out the man and state the case baldly:  ’Sir, we have protection to sell, without which your knowledge is worthless, or near it.  Protection from ourselves and all others.  Make treaty with us; allot to us, jointly, some share, which you shall name yourself, and we will deal justly by you.  So shall you avoid delay.  You may avoid some risk. Quien sabe? If you refuse we shall truly endeavor to be interestin’; and you may get nothing.’  That’s what I would say.”

“A share, to be named by Johnson and then be divided between ten?  Well, I guess not!” declared Zurich.  “To begin with, we’ll find a way to stop Kid Mitchell from any Eastern trip.  Capital is shy; I’m not much afraid of what Johnson can do.  But this boy has the inside track.”

“With my usual astuteness,” remarked Something Dewing, “I had divined as much.  And there is another string to our bow if we make a complete failure of this mine business—­as would seem to be promised by the Gavilan fiasco.  When such goodly sums are expended to procure the downfall of Kid Mitchell—­an event as yet unexpectedly delayed—­there’s money in it somewhere.  Big money!  I know it.  And I mean to touch some of it.  My unknown benefactor shall have my every assistance to attain his hellish purpose—­hellish purpose, I believe, is the phrase proper to the complexion of this affair.  Then, to use the words of the impulsive Hotspur, slightly altered to suit the occasion, I’ll creep upon him while he lies asleep, and in his ear I’ll whisper—­Snooks!”

“You don’t know where he lives,” said Zurich.

“Ah, but you do!  I beg your pardon, Zurich—­perhaps in my thoughtlessness I have wounded you.  I used the wrong pronoun.  I did not mean to say ’I’—­much less ’you’—­in reference to who should hollo ‘Halves!’ to our sleeping benefactor.  ‘We’ was the word I should have used.”

Zurich regarded Mr. Dewing in darkling silence; and that gentleman, in no way daunted, continued gayly: 

“I see that the same idea has shadowed itself to you.  You must consider us—­Eric and I—­equals in that enterprise, friend Mayer.  Three good friends together.  I begin to fear we have sadly underestimated Eric—­you and I. By our own admission—­and his—­he is a better fighting man than either of us.  You wouldn’t want to displease him.”

“I think you go about it in an ill way to remedy a mistake, Dewing,” said Zurich.  “Don’t let’s be silly enough to fall out over one chance gone wrong.  We’ve got all we can attend to right now, without such a folly as that.  Don’t mind him, Eric.  Tell me, rather, what we are going to do about this troublesome Johnson?  Violence is out of the question:  we need him to show us where he found that copper.  Besides, it isn’t safe to kill old Pete, and it never has been safe to kill old Pete.  As for the Kid, I’ll