Chapter XI

66

STRANGE FISH

Doc told him, “Paris is a very pretty girl, and sure to be looked at.”

“Yeah, well I didn't like it.”

Doc examined Johnny thoughtfully. “You're in love with her?”

“Me? That's a laugh,” Johnny said violently. “Who am I to get ideas like that? I'm just the foreman of the ranch, the guy they laugh at around here. The guy who amuses them, that's me.”

A vehemence got into his speech, spurting out of him like boiling water out of a faucet.

He added, nearly shouting, “You know how much money Paris has? Millions. Them oil wells where we were today, she gets a seventh royalty on everything that comes out of them. And we didn't see all the wells either.

Listen, when I fall in love, I'll use my head and pick a local squaw to do it with.”

Doc thought: He's in love with Paris, all right.

“All right,” Doc said, “Let's get back to business.”

“What more business is there?” Johnny demanded impatiently. “We've looked at the fish. We're no smarter than we were.”

“What did it come in?”

“I don't get—oh! Oh, you mean what was the fish in? This thing here.” Johnny went to a closet and dug around inside.

He unearthed a container of the sort used for shipping aquarium fish. Doc examined this. The thing was no makeshift; it had been designed and manufactured for the specific purpose of shipping aquarium stock. It was a standard model, Doc believed, although he was not a specialist on fish and had not seen many such containers before.

The thing was designed so that it would contain water and fish, and it had a glass window so that the men handling it during shipment could tell what it was. There was an arrangement for aërating the water. It was also plentifully labeled for what it was, a shipment container for valuable fish. Doc found the manufacturer's name and address, the Elco Tank Company, New York. The container, he noted, was battered and scratched, but it still had an appearance of newness.

“We'll take this apart,” Doc said.

He took it apart.

He tried every test on it he could think of, and inspected it minutely for such things as microscopic writing, unscrewing the lens from the flashlight and using that for a magnifying glass.

He finished with no more knowledge than he'd had when he started, except that it was a well−made container.

“Keep drawing blanks, don't we?” Johnny Toms said.