With the superstition of the gambler he believed that he would find an enemy in the third person to recognize him, and with a gambler’s stolid acceptance of the inevitable he relaxed and allowed himself to plan for the immediate future.  On Pete’s actual condition would depend what should be done.  The Spider drew a newspaper clipping from his pocket.  The El Paso paper stated that there was one chance in a thousand of Pete recovering.  The paper also stated that there had been money involved—­a considerable sum in gold—­which had not been found.  The entire affair was more or less of a mystery.  It was hinted that the money might not have been honestly come by in the first place, and—­sententiously—­that crime breeds crime, in proof of which, the article went on to say; “the man who had been shot by the police was none other than Pete Annersley, notorious as a gunman in the service of the even more notorious Jim Ewell, of Showdown, or ‘The Spider,’ as he was known to his associates.”  Followed a garbled account of the raid on the Annersley homestead and the later circumstance of the shooting of Gary, all of which, concluded the item, spoke for itself.

“More than Pete had a chance to do,” soliloquized The Spider.  “They got the kid chalked up as a crook—­and he’s as straight as a die.”  And strangely enough this thought seemed to please The Spider.

Shouldering through the crowd at the El Paso station, The Spider rubbed against a well-dressed, portly Mexican who half-turned, showed surprise as he saw the back of a figure which seemed familiar—­the bowed legs and peculiar walk—­and the portly Mexican, up from the south because certain financial interests had backed him politically were becoming decidedly uncertain, named a name, not loudly, but distinctly and with peculiar emphasis.  The Spider heard, but did not heed nor hurry.  A black-shawled Mexican woman carrying a baby blundered into the portly Mexican.  He shoved her roughly aside.  She cursed him for a pig who robbed the poor—­for he was known to most Mexicans—­and he so far forgot his dignity and station as to curse her heartily in return.  The Spider meanwhile was lost in the crowd that banked the station platform.

El Paso had grown—­was not the El Paso of The Spider’s earlier days, and for a brief while he forgot his mission in endeavoring mentally to reconstruct the old town as he had known it.  Arrived at the Plaza he turned and gazed about.  “Number two,” he said to himself, recalling the portly Mexican—­and the voice.  He shrugged his shoulders.

His request to see the president of the Stockmen’s Bank was borne hesitatingly to that individual’s private office, the messenger returning promptly with instructions to “show the gentleman in.”

Contrary to all precedent the president, Hodges, was not portly, but a man almost as lean as The Spider himself; a quick, nervous man, forceful and quite evidently “self-made.”