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A Call Loan
by
“No doubt of it,” assented Cooper, urbanely, “but I’ve a partner, you know. I’m not free in making loans. And even if you had the best security in your hands, Merwin, we couldn’t accommodate you in less than a week. We’re just making a shipment of $15,000 to Myer Brothers in Rockdell, to buy cotton with. It goes down on the narrow-gauge to-night. That leaves our cash quite short at present. Sorry we can’t arrange it for you.”
Merwin went back to his little bare office and plaited at his quirt again. About four o’clock in the afternoon he went to the First National Bank and leaned over the railing of Longley’s desk.
“I’ll try to get that money for you to-night–I mean to-morrow, Bill.”
“All right, Tom,” said Longley quietly.
At nine o’clock that night Tom Merwin stepped cautiously out of the small frame house in which he lived. It was near the edge of the little town, and few citizens were in the neighbourhood at that hour. Merwin wore two six-shooters in a belt, and a slouch hat. He moved swiftly down a lonely street, and then followed the sandy road that ran parallel to the narrow-gauge track until he reached the water- tank, two miles below the town. There Tom Merwin stopped, tied a black silk handkerchief about the lower part of his face, and pulled his hat down low.
In ten minutes the night train for Rockdell pulled up at the tank, having come from Chaparosa.
With a gun in each hand Merwin raised himself from behind a clump of chaparral and started for the engine. But before he had taken three steps, two long, strong arms clasped him from behind, and he was lifted from his feet and thrown, face downward upon the grass. There was a heavy knee pressing against his back, and an iron hand grasping each of his wrists. He was held thus, like a child, until the engine had taken water, and until the train had moved, with accelerating speed, out of sight. Then he was released, and rose to his feet to face Bill Longley.
“The case never needed to be fixed up this way, Tom,” said Longley. “I saw Cooper this evening, and he told me what you and him talked about. Then I went down to your house to-night and saw you come out with your guns on, and I followed you. Let’s go back, Tom.”
They walked away together, side by side.
“‘Twas the only chance I saw,” said Merwin presently. “You called your loan, and I tried to answer you. Now, what’ll you do, Bill, if they sock it to you?”
“What would you have done if they’d socked it to you?” was the answer Longley made.
“I never thought I’d lay in a bush to stick up a train,” remarked Merwin; “but a call loan’s different. A call’s a call with me. We’ve got twelve hours yet, Bill, before this spy jumps onto you. We’ve got to raise them spondulicks somehow. Maybe we can–Great Sam Houston! do you hear that?”
Merwin broke into a run, and Longley kept with him, hearing only a rather pleasing whistle somewhere in the night rendering the lugubrious air of “The Cowboy’s Lament.”
“It’s the only tune he knows,” shouted Merwin, as he ran. “I’ll bet–“
They were at the door of Merwin’s house. He kicked it open and fell over an old valise lying in the middle of the floor. A sunburned, firm-jawed youth, stained by travel, lay upon the bed puffing at a brown cigarette.
“What’s the word, Ed?” gasped Merwin.
“So, so,” drawled that capable youngster. “Just got in on the 9:30. Sold the bunch for fifteen, straight. Now, buddy, you want to quit kickin’ a valise around that’s got $29,000 in greenbacks in its in’ards.”