Some Buried Caesar

"I ought to warn you I've consulted a lawyer. There's no legal way of stopping it, if I own him, no matter how much of a champion he is."

Clyde merely shrugged. The look on his face was one I've often seen in a poker game.

"Well." Pratt leaned back and got his thumbs in his arm- pits. "This is mighty interesting. What about it, McMillan? Can they get that bull out of that pasture in spite of us?"

The stockman muttered, "I don't know who would be do- ing it. If there's any funny business… if we had him in a barn…"

"I haven't got a barn." Pratt eyed Clyde. "One thing. What do we do, put up now? Checks?"

Clyde flushed. "My check would be rubber. You know that, damn it. If I lose I'll pay."

"You're proposing a gentleman's bet? With me?"

"All right, call it that. A gentleman's bet."

"By Cod. My boy, I'm flattered. I really am. But I can't afford to do much flattering when $10,000 is involved. I'm afraid I couldn't bet unless I had some sort of inkling of where you would get hold of that. amount."

Clyde got halfway out of his chair, and my feet came back automatically for a spring, but his sister pulled him back. She tried to pull him away, too, with urgent remarks about leaving, but he shook himself loose and even gave her a shove. He glared at Pratt with his jaw clamped:

"You damn trash, you say that to an Osgood! All right, I'll take some of your money, since that's all there is to you! If my father phones you to guarantee my side, does that make it a gentleman's bet?"

"Then you really do want to bet."

"I do."

"$10,000 even on the proposition as these people here have heard it."

"I do."

"All right. If your father guarantees it, it's a bet."

Clyde turned and started off without even a glance around for good-bye. His friend Bronson put down his drink and fol- lowed him. They had to wait at the edge of the terrace for Nancy, who, flustered as she was, managed a dam good exit under the circumstances. As she got away Monte McMillan stood up and remarked to Pratt:

"I've known that Osgood boy since he was a baby. I guess I'd better go and tell him not to do anything foolish."

He tramped off after them.

Lily Rowan said hopefully, "It sounds to me as if there's going to be dirty work at the crossroads." She patted the space beside her which Jimmy Pratt had vacated. "Come and sit here, Escamillo, and tell me what's going to happen."