Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/269

Rh Snitching—well, you get the idea, eh? I'm ducking that, too. Get me?"

"I get you," said Lannigan, with a short, pleased laugh.

"Well, then," announced Whitey Mack, "here's my proposition, and it's my turn to hand out the 'look-out-for-yourself' dope. I'm busting the game wide open for you to play, but you throw me down, and"—his voice sank into a sullen snarl again—"you can take it from me, I'll get you for it!"

"All right," responded Lannigan soberly. Let's hear it. If I agree to it, I'll stick to it."

"I believe you," said Whitey Mack curtly. "That's why I picked you out for the medal they'll pin on you for this. And here's getting down to tacks! I'll lead you to the Gray Seal to-night and help you nab him and stay with you to the finish, but there's to be nobody but you and me on the job. When it's done I fade away, and nobody's to know I snitched, and no questions asked as to how I found out about the Gray Seal. I ain't looking for any of the glory—you can fix that up to suit yourself. The cash is different—you come across with half the reward the day they pay it."

"You'll get it!" There was savage elation in Lannigan's voice, the emphatic smash of a fist on the table. "You're on, Whitey. And if we get the Gray Seal to-night, I'll do better by you than that."

"We'll get him!" said Whitey Mack, with a vicious oath. "And"

Jimmie Dale crouched suddenly low down, close against the wall. The crunch of a footstep sounded from the end of the lane. Some one had turned in from the cross street, some fifty yards away, and was heading evidently for the back entrance to Bristol Bob's. Jimmie Dale edged noiselessly, cautiously back past the doorway, kept on, pressed close against the wall, and finally paused. He had not been seen. The back door of Bristol Bob's opened and closed. The man had gone in.

For a moment Jimmie Dale stood hesitant. There was a wild surging in his brain, something like a myriad batteries of trip hammers seemed to be pounding at his temples.