Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/323

 'em how I had fooled Dolores and bet the Kid's money like he told me. How I'd met his old man in his oifice by chance and gave him the entire roll to bet that the Kid would stop Enright in six rounds. I wave old man Halliday's receipt for the jack at the busted Kid.

Nobody said nothin' for a minute—the toughest sixty seconds I ever spent in my life! Then Dolores spoke, her eyes scorchin' me. "Oh!" she kind of flung at me. "And I trusted you!"

Never in her life will that girl believe I'm not crooked!

"No!" says the Kid suddenly, throwin' an arm around me. "You must not misjudge him, Dolores, you must not be angry. I'd stake my life on this man's honesty—frequently have—and he did right! He followed my instructions to the letter—"

A knock on the door interrupted him, and old man Halliday walks in, grabs the Kid and they hug each other. "Still champion!" says the old man, his chest out a extry foot.

"Still champion, dad!" smiles the Kid. "But we're back about four years. I'm penniless, as you probably know. Of course, you placed the money?"

"Yes," says the old man, "I placed it—I placed it in Mexicali Oil and, as for being penniless—" He laughs, kinda hysterically. "You're rather hard to please, Kane. I should say, roughly, that at this minute you're worth half a million!"

"Holy mackerel!" I yells and fell into a chair. This stuff is tough on the heart! The rest seemec speechless.