"I am a man
with a price on me!" he said bitterly. "Give me up to the sheriff, and
you'll get five thousand dollars. Help me, and you'll get nothing.
That's my d--d luck, and yours too, I suppose."
"I reckon you're right there," said Patterson gloomily. "But I thought
you got clean away,--went off in a ship"--
"Went off in a boat to a ship," interrupted Tucker savagely; "went off
to a ship that had all my things on board--everything. The cursed boat
capsized in a squall just off the Heads. The ship, d--n her, sailed
away, the men thinking I was drowned, likely, and that they'd make a
good thing off my goods, I reckon."
"But the girl, Inez, who was with you, didn't she make a row?"
"_Quien sabe?_" returned Tucker, with a reckless laugh. "Well, I hung
on like grim death to that boat's keel until one of those Chinese
fishermen, in a 'dug-out,' hauled me in opposite Saucelito. I chartered
him and his dug-out to bring me down here."
"Why here?" asked Patterson, with a certain ostentatious caution that
ill concealed his pensive satisfaction.
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