I flicked the tail of my coat aside to show him the butt of my gun.
“Want to borrow the rod?” I asked.
“No.”
He was trying to figure me out, and small wonder.
“Don’t mind if I stick around to see the fun, do you?” I asked, mockingly.
There wasn’t time for him to answer that. Boyd had quickened his steps, and now he came hurrying around the corner, his nose twitching like a tracking dog’s.
Ledwich stepped into the middle of the sidewalk, so suddenly that the little man thudded into him with a grunt. For a moment they stared at each other, and there was recognition between them.
Ledwich shot one big hand out and clamped the other by a shoulder.
“What are you snooping around me for, you rat? Didn’t I tell you to keep away from Frisco?”
“Aw, Jake!” Boyd begged. “I didn’t mean no harm. I just thought that—”
Ledwich silenced him with a shake that clicked his mouth shut, and turned to me.
“A friend of mine,” he sneered.
His eyes grew suspicious and hard again, and ran up and down me from cap to shoes.
“How’d you know my name?” he demanded.
“A famous man like you?” I asked, in burlesque astonishment.