CHAPTER IV
Mexicali
STONE'S lawyer friend, whose name was Redfern, lunched him at the Jonathan Club.
"You know your own business, Jim, of course," he said. "But that's a precious pair of rascals you're tied up with. Of the two I prefer the Britisher. That chap Healy is a snake-man, sleek and suck and silent and always dangerous. If this stuff you're going after is really worth while, though it seems like a wild-goose chase to me, look out. As I gather it, you are the goose—the one who lays the golden eggs—up to the time you cry 'Sesame' to this treasure cave. Just follow out that simile. You remember what the robbers did to trespassers in that Arabian Nights' cave?"
"Quartered them and wrapped the quarters up in sacks, wasn't it?" smiled Stone. "You also forget what the dancing-girl did to the robbers. I'm taking chances, I grant you that, but I've been a damned fool most of my life and I've run all over the face of the earth and spilled a pot of money. I've got the habit of money, Redfern. I've been educated up to it. Sooner than grub along without travel, books, music, plays, good food, good furnishings, the company of the refined, if not the cultured—which in-
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