The minutes passed, five of them, and then Jimmie Dale, too, was making
his way softly along the areaway to the street--but in Jimmie Dale's
pockets were the short leaden blackjack, ugly for the stain on its
leathern covering, the packet of papers, and the roll of banknotes that
had been in Klanner's trunk. He gained the street, paused under the
nearest street lamp to consult his watch, and swung briskly along
again. It was a matter of only two blocks to Baldy Jack's, one of the
most infamous dance halls in the Bad Lands, but it was already ten
minutes to ten.
And now a curious metamorphosis came to Jimmie Dale's appearance. The
neat, well-fitting Fifth Avenue tweeds did not fit quite so
perfectly--the coat bunched a little at the shoulders, the trousers were
drawn a little higher until they lost their "set." His hat was pulled
still farther over his eyes, but at a more rakish angle, and his tie,
tucked into his shirt bosom just below the collar, exposed blatantly a
diamond shirt stud. But on Jimmie Dale's lips there was an ominous smile
not wholly in keeping with the somewhat jaunty swagger he had assumed,
and the lines at the corners of his mouth were drawn down hard and
sharp.
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