Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/214

204 owner is. However, there is an understanding that if the loan isn't covered in eighteen months the instrument becomes salable for my own protection. There is a year still to run."

Four o'clock found Cutty pacing his study, the room blue with smoke. Of all the queer chaps he had met in his varied career this Two-Hawks topped the lot. The constant internal turmoil that must be going on, the instincts of the blood—artist and autocrat! And in the end, the owner of a cattle ranch, if he had the luck to get there alive! Dizzy old world.

Something else happened at four o'clock. A policeman strolled into Eightieth Street. He was at peace with the world. Spring was in his whistle, in his stride, in the twirl of his baton. Whenever he passed a shop window he made it serve as a mirror. No waistline yet—a comforting thought.

Children swarmed the street and gathered at corners. The older ones played boldly in midstreet, while the toddlers invented games that kept them to the sidewalk and curb. The policeman came stealthily upon one of these latter groups—Italians. At the sight of his brass buttons they fled precipitately. He laughed. Once in a month of moons he was able to get near enough to touch them. Natural. Hadn't he himself hiked in the old days at the sight of a copper? Sure, he had.

A bit of colour on the sidewalk attracted his eye,