Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/133

 are in such shape on the division now that somebody had to come, so they sent for me.”

The two men were sitting at a table. Whispering Smith was cutting and leisurely mixing a pack of cards.

“Well, so far as I’m concerned, I’m out of it,” Sinclair went on after a pause, “but, however that may be, if you’re back here looking for trouble there’s no reason, I guess, why you can’t find it.”

“That’s not it. I’m not here looking for trouble; I’m here to fix this thing up. What do you want?”

“Not a thing.”

“I’m willing to do anything fair and right,” declared Whispering Smith, raising his voice a little above the hum of the rooms.

“Fair and right is an old song.”

“And a good one to sing in this country just now. I’ll do anything I can to adjust any grievance, Murray. What do you want?”

Sinclair for a moment was silent, and his answer made plain his unwillingness to speak at all. “There never would have been a grievance if I’d been treated like a white man.” His eyes burned sullenly. “I’ve been treated like a dog.”

“That is not it.”

“That is it,” declared Sinclair savagely, “and they’ll find it’s it.” 111