"I hadn't finished the picture. In the meantime, you will be getting out
of it just one good swift kick, and that is all."

"I shouldn't write any such letter. Not 'till I felt the feel of the
dough."

"Not at first you wouldn't," I said, softly. "Certainly not at first.
But after a while you would. These renegade Mexicans--like Hooper's
Ramon, for example--know a lot of rotten little tricks. They drive
pitch-pine splinters into your legs and set fire to them, for one thing.
Or make small cuts in you with a knife, and load them up with powder
squibs in oiled paper--so the blood won't wet them--and touch them off.
And so on. When you've been shown about ten per cent, of what old Ramon
knows about such things, you'll write most any kind of a letter."

"My God!" he muttered, thrusting the ridiculous derby to the back of his
head.

"So you see you'd look sweet walking trustfully into Hooper's claws.
That's what that newspaper ad was meant for. And when the respectable
lawyer wrote that the contract had been delivered, do you know what
would happen to you?"

The ex-jockey shuddered.

"But you've only told me part of what I want to know," I pursued. "You
got me side-tracked. This daughter of the dead pardner--this girl, what
about her? Where is she now?"