Roy Norton

“ David mumbled to his partner.
“Let ’em fight! Saves us trouble,” said Goliath.
The gangplank fell and the passengers began to pass away, in an orderly procession, before the cabin door opened, and the first of the sharks appeared. Instantly he was confronted by a determined little red-headed man, who said: “Just a minute. I want to talk to you two fellers. We’ll just step inside, if you don’t mind.”
With an oath of surprise the man fell back, and both Goliath and David entered, and closed the door behind them. ”

“ Why, boys, I won fifteen hundred dollars last night. Nobody can beat me. I’m Cochran. Lucky Cochran!”
And his “Haw, haw, haw!” was so loud it startled even the deck steward, who barely missed dropping a cup of hot coffee he was carrying to an invalid, and prompted an A. B. on the boat deck to peer over, to learn whether there was a menagerie aboard.
“Oh, you’re lucky, are you?” David answered with a badly concealed sneer. “And you’ve won at the first sitting, have you? Well, see here, Cochran, I’m goin’ to tell you something. The boob always wins at first—until the stakes get high. ”

“ It was on the tip of Goliath’s tongue to say, “Not by a dam sight, you won’t,” but David broke in hurriedly with, “Come to think of it we ain’t so sure. Maybe we won’t go that way. We’re thinkin’ it over.”
By skillful dodging they succeeded in losing Cochran, when they arrived at Los Angeles, and went to an obscure hotel, where they intended to stop overnight and break their journey; for railways to men of their stamp were like temporary prisons. Unfortunately, after dining, they sat in the rotunda which was ablaze with lights. In from the street rushed Mr. Cochran with great jubilation. ”

“ They were leaning up against a deck cabin, staring at the sea and, as usual, saying nothing because there was nothing to talk about, when through the open window near them they heard a yawn, as some late sleeper turned in his berth, and then an answering yawn.
“Gad! I dreamed that sucker Cochran was talking to me in my sleep. Bad enough to have to sit up until three o’clock and listen to him. We certainly do have to work hard to earn our money. ”

“ It’s only because you’re such a dam old simpleton that we do anything at all. Maybe this’ll teach you a lesson!”
“It will! It will!” groaned the now “unlucky” Cochran, with great humility. “But—but—how you goin’ to hold ’em aboard this here ship?”
“We’re goin’ to horn into their cabin with a gun and just naturally keep ’em there,” said David as the plan slipped into his agile mind.
“By gosh! That’ll be good!” Cochran gleefully chortled. “Me for the head of that gangplank!”
David, and Goliath stationed themselves outside the cabin door of the two sharpers and waited. ”

“ We can detain ’em for a few hours, but no longer. You two men better go and see if you can find your friend that they skinned out of his wad. If I don’t hear from you before morning and have to turn ’em loose, I’ve got a way of keepin’ track of ’em so that we can pick ’em up again, when you find your man. What hotel you going to stop at?”
He wrote down the address David gave, and ushered him out. The partners caught a nighthawk taxi and went to their hotel first, and then instituted such inquiries as they could for the missing Mr. Cochran—all without success. ”

“ Teamsters drove straining horses hauling highly piled wagons into the caverns, and the rumble of hoofs and wheels echoed like a song of export in the morning air. The screech of a hundred steam winches told of cargoes being lowered into holds. ”

“ That these two were known to frontiersmen and men of their ilk, over many thousands of miles, as “David and Goliath,” meant nothing to them, nor to any of their fellow passengers; but that they had casually reversed a seat in the smoking car and thus sprawled over two seats instead of one did, as a magnet, attract the attention of a man who wandered inward with a very large and very new alligator-skin suit case that he dropped in the aisle beside them. ”

“ To increase boredom they had for so long been partners and fellow adventurers that all ordinary topics of conversation between them had long been exhausted, and the barren scenery through which they passed was too familiar to be worthy of interest. ”

“ I reckon we’re the only friends he’s got in this whole blamed town to look after him and help him out. But—— By the great horn spoon! He ought to be in an orphan asylum or hire a guardian, I reckon.”
Glum with anxiety they boarded a Market Street car and rode to the ferry. Glum with anxiety they trudged from there to the police office and, glum with anxiety they entered. The same plain-clothes man they had interviewed in the night lowered a paper he had been reading, looked at them, recognized them, and grinned.
“Well,” he inquired pleasantly, “did you find your man Cochran? No? Humph! ”

“ We’re always buttin’ into somethin’ that ain’t worth while. And—we thought he was the man that talked too much, and didn’t sabe how to take care of himself.”
“It’s me and you that ought to have a nurse leadin’ us by the ears,” David replied, then paused, seemed to quest for some excuse, and then scowled upward at his stalwart and time-tried partner, and said admonishingly: “Goliath, you’re all right ”