The Oakdale Affair

"The objection to remaining here," said Bridge, "is that we can't make a fire to cook by--it would be too plainly visible from the road."

"But I can no fin' road by dark," explained Giova. "It bad road by day, ver' much worse by night. Beppo no come 'cross swamp by night. No, we got stay here til morning."

"All right," replied Bridge, "we can eat some of this canned stuff and have our ham and coffee after we reach camp tomorrow morning, eh?"

"And now that we've gotten through Payson safely," suggested The Oskaloosa Kid, "let's change back into our own clothes. This disguise makes me feel too conspicuous."

Willie Case had heard enough. His quarry would remain where it was over night, and a moment later Willie was racing toward Payson and a telephone as fast as his legs would carry him.

In an old brick structure a hundred yards below the mill where the lighting machinery of Payson had been installed before the days of the great central power plant a hundred miles away four men were smoking as they lay stretched upon the floor.

"I tell you I seen him," asserted one of the party. "I follered this Bridge guy from town to the mill. He was got up like a Gyp; but I knew him all right, all right. This scenery of his made me tink there was something phoney doin', or I wouldn't have trailed him, an' its a good ting I done it, fer he hadn't ben there five minutes before along comes The Kid an' a skirt and pretty soon a nudder chicken wid a calf on a string, er mebbie it was a sheep--it was pretty husky lookin' fer a sheep though. An' I sticks aroun' a minute until I hears this here Bridge guy call the first skirt 'Miss Prim.'"

He ceased speaking to note the effect of his words on his hearers. They were electrical. The Sky Pilot sat up straight and slapped his thigh. Soup Face opened his mouth, letting his pipe fall out into his lap, setting fire to his ragged trousers. Dirty Eddie voiced a characteristic obscenity.

"So you sees," went on Columbus Blackie, "we got a chanct to get both the dame and The Kid. Two of us can take her to Oakdale an' claim the reward her old man's offerin' an' de odder two can frisk de Kid, an'--an'--."

"An' wot?" queried The Sky Pilot.

"Dere's de swamp handy," suggested Soup Face.