Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/19

Rh soft-fleshed man, with high cheekbones and the nose of a hawk, thin-lipped and sneery, watchful, chary of speech, careful of his liquor. A gambler who had lost his stake-money, was the general opinion of Skyfields regarding Healy, and private judgment referred to him as "The Con Man."

And there was "Lefty" Larkin, squat but strong, undersized, undeveloped in every way, save in a certain cunning sharpened by experience that often beat superior wits which did not work quickly enough along certain lines. He had a face not unlike an English pug dog, had Lefty, with his bashed-in nose, deep-set, pale-blue eyes, and heavy lines from mouth corners to nose angles. There was a certain rugged honesty suggested in his plainness that helped Lefty to get by. You had a feeling that he was square with his pals. He was a battered specimen and it was hard to arrive at his age. He was a migrated Cockney from Seven Dials, London, his early upbringing grafted on to later education in the Bowery. Soldier, sailor, tinker, thief, fifth-rate pugilist, and general drifter—that was Lefty Larkin. Skyfields called him "The Bruiser."

Stone figured that Lefty had hurriedly jumped a train for somewhere, for some reason, and that his choice of Skyfields was not all his own, save that it fitted a present desire for retirement. He did not care what Lefty had done. The grown-up gamin amused him and, after the first hand-out and a general talk, he had offered Lefty a job on the claim. No wages, unless there was some spare money at the