“‘If I wanted to waste the time,’ says Jerry, ’I’d get up and throw you out.’

“‘It’s a wise man,’ says Doone, ’that does his talking from the other side of a rock.’

“‘Well,’ says Jerry, ‘d’you think I can’t throw you out?’

“‘Anyway,’ says Doone, ‘I’m still here.’

“I heard the springs squeal, as Jerry went bouncing out of bed.  For a minute they wrestled, and I opened the door.  What I see was Jerry lying flat, and Doone sitting on his chest, as calm and smiling as you please.  I closed the door quick.  Jerry’s too game a boy to mind being licked fair and square, but, of course, he’d rather fight till he died than have me or anybody else see him give up.

“‘I dunno how you got there,’ says Jerry, ’but, if I don’t kill you for this later on, I’d like to shake hands with you.  It was a good trick.’

“‘The gent that taught me near busted me in two with the trick of it,’ said Doone.  ’S’pose I let you up.  Is it to be a handshaking or fighting?’

“‘My wind is gone for half an hour,’ says Jerry, ’and my head is pretty near jarred loose from my spinal column.  I guess it’ll have to be hand-shaking today.  But I warn you, Doone,’ he says, ’someday I’ll have it all out with you over again.’

“‘Any time you mention,’ says Doone, ’but, if you’d landed that left when you rushed in, I would have been on the carpet, instead of you.’

“And Jerry chuckles, feeling a pile better to think how near he’d come to winning the fight.

“‘Wait till I jump under the shower,’ says Jerry, ’and I’ll be with you again.  Have you had breakfast?  And what brought you to me?  And who the devil are you, Doone?  Are you out of the West?’

“He piles all these questions thick and fast at Doone, and then I seen right off that him and Doone had made up to be pretty thick with each other.  So I went away from the door and didn’t listen any more, and in about half an hour out they walk, arm in arm, like old pals.”

It was perfectly clear to John Mark that Ronicky had come there purposely to break the link between him and young Jerry Smith.  It was perfectly plain why he wanted to do it.

“How much does Jerry owe me?” he asked suddenly.

The other drew out a pad and calculated for a moment:  “Seven thousand eight hundred and forty-two,” he announced with a grin, as he put back the pad.  “That’s what he’s sold himself for, up to this time.”

“Too much in a way and not enough in another way,” replied John Mark.  “Listen, if he comes back, which I doubt, keep him here.  Get him away from Ronicky—­dope him—­dope them both.  In any case, if he comes back here, don’t let him get away.  You understand?”

“Nope, but I don’t need to understand.  I’ll do it.”

John Mark nodded and turned toward the door.

Chapter Eighteen

The Spider’s Web