by B. M. Bower
FOOL'S GOLD.
Andy Green, unshaven as to face and haggard as to eyes, leaned uponhis stout, willow stick and looked gloomily away to the west. He was agood deal given to looking to the west, these days when a legnew-healed kept him at the ranch, though habit and inclination wouldhave sent him riding fast and far over prairies untamed. Inactioncomes hard when a man has lived his life mostly in the open, doingthose things which keep brain and muscle keyed alike to alertness andleave no time for brooding.
If Andy had not broken his leg but had gone with the others onroundup, he would never have spent the days glooming unavailinglybecause a girl with a blond pompadour and teasing eyes had gone awayand taken with her a false impression of his morals, and left behindher the sting of a harsh judgment against which there seemed noappeal. As it was, he spent the time going carefully over his past inself-justification, and in remembering every moment that he had spentwith Mary Johnson in those four weeks when she stayed with her fatherand petted the black lamb and the white.
In his prejudiced view, he had never done anything to make a girl hatehim. He had not always told the truth--he would admit that withcandid, gray eyes looking straight into your own--but he had neverlied to harm a man, which, it seemed to him, makes all the differencein the world.
If he could once have told her how he felt about it, and showed herhow the wide West breeds wider morals--he did not quite know how youwould put these things, but he felt them very keenly. He wanted tomake her feel the difference; to see that little things do not countin a man's life, after all, except when they affect him as a man whenbig things are wanted of him. A little cowardice would count, forinstance, because it would show that the man would fail at the test;but a little lie? just a harmless sort of lie that was only a "josh"and was taken as such by one's fellows? Andy was not analytic bynature, and he would have stumbled vaguely among words to explain hisviews, but he felt very strongly the injustice of the girl'scondemnation, and he would scarcely speak to Jack Bates and Irish whenthey came around making overtures for peace and goodwill.
"If she hadn't gone home so sudden, I could uh squared it all right,"he told the Little Doctor, whenever her sympathetic attitude won himto speech upon the subject.
"Yes, I believe you could," she would agree cheeringly. "If she's theright sort, and cared, you could."
"She's the right sort--I know that," Andy would assert with muchdecision, though modesty forbade his telling the Little Doctor that hewas also sure she cared. She did care, if a girl's actions count foranything, or her looks and smiles. Of course she cared! Else why didshe rush off home like that, a good month before she had intended togo? They had planned that Andy would get a "lay-off" and go with heras far as Butte, because she would have to wait there several hours,and Andy wanted to take her out to the Columbia Gardens and see if shedidn't think they were almost as nice as anything California couldshow. Then she had gone off without any warning because Jack Bates andIrish had told her a lot of stuff about him, Andy; if that didn'tprove she cared, argued Andy to himself, what the dickens would youwant for proof?
It was from thinking these things over and over while he lay in bed,that Andy formed the habit of looking often towards the west when hishurt permitted him to hobble around the house. And when a man looksoften enough in any direction, his feet will, unless hindered by fateitself, surely follow his gaze if you give them time enough.
It was the excursion rates advertised in a Great Falls paper thatfirst put the idea consciously into the brain of Andy. They seemedvery cheap, and the time-limit was generous, and--San Jose was notvery far from San Francisco, the place named in the advertisement; andif he could only see the girl and explain--It would be another monthbefore he would be able to work, anyway, and--A man might as well getrid of a hundred or so travelling, as to sit in a poker game and watchit fade away, and he would really get more out of it. Anyhow, nobodyneed know where he had gone. They could think he was just going toButte. And he didn't give a darn if they did find it out!
He limped back into the house and began inspecting, with muchdissatisfaction, his wardrobe. He would have to stake himself to newclothes--but he needed clothes, anyway, that fall. He could get whathe wanted in Butte, while he waited for the train to Ogden. Now thatAndy had made up his mind to go, he was in a great hurry and grudgedthe days, even the hours, that must pass before he could see MaryEdith Johnson.
Not even the Little Doctor knew the truth, when Andy appeared nextmorning dressed for his journey, ate a hasty and unsatisfactorybreakfast and took the Old Man to one side with elaborate carelessnessand asked for a sum that made the Old Man blink. But no man might havecharge of the Happy Family for long without attaining that state ofmental insulation which renders a shock scientifically impossible. TheOld Man wrote a check, twisted his mouth into a whimsical knot andinquired mildly: "What's the brand of devilment this time, and howlong's it going to take yuh?" With a perceptible emphasis on the word_this_.
For probably the first time in his life Andy blushed and stammeredover a lie, and before he had got out more than two words, the Old Manseemed to understand the situation quite thoroughly. He said "Oh, Isee. Well, git a round-trip ticket and be dead sure yuh don't out-staythe limit." He took out his pipe and filled it meditatively.
Andy blushed again--six weeks indoors had lightened the tan on hisface so that his blushes showed very plainly--and made desperatedenial. "I'm only going up to Butte. But a fellow can't have any kindof a time there without a fair-sized roll, and--I'll be back in two orthree weeks--soon as my leg's mended thorough. I--"
"Get along with yuh!" growled the Old Man, though his eyes twinkled."Doggone it, don't yuh lie to _me_. Think I was shipped in on the lasttrain? A man don't git red in the face when he's just merely headedfor Butte. Why, doggone yuh--"
The last words had to serve for a farewell, because Andy was limpingaway as fast as he could, and did not come back to the house again. Hedid not even tell the Little Doctor good-by, though it was fifteenminutes before John Wedum, the ranchhand, had the team ready to driveAndy to town, and he was one of the Little Doctor's most loyalsubjects.
* * * * *
Andy walked haltingly down a palm-shaded street in San Jose andwondered just what would be the best and quickest way in which to findMary Edith Johnson. Three ways were open to him: He could hunt up allthe Johnsons in town--there were three full pages of them in thedirectory, as he remembered with a sigh--and find out which one wasthe right one; but San Jose, as he had already discovered, was not avillage, and he doubted if he could stand the walking. He could visitall the real estate offices in town--and he was just beginning torealize that there were almost as many real estate offices as therewere Johnsons. And he could promenade the streets in the hope ofmeeting her. But always there was the important fact to face--the factthat San Jose is not a village.
He came upon a particularly shady spot and a bench placed invitingly.Andy sat down, eased the new-healed leg out before him and rolled acigarette. "This is going to be some different from hunting a stray onthe range," he told himself, with an air of deliberate cheerfulness."If I could get out and scurrup around on a hoss, and round her upthat way--but this footing it all over town is what grinds me." Hedrew a match along the under side of the bench and held the blazeabsently to the cigarette. "There was one thing--she told about anorange tree right beside her mother's front gate, Maybe--" He lookedaround him hopefully. Just across the street was a front gate, andbeside it an orange tree; he knew because there were ripe orangeshanging upon it. He started to rise, his blood jumping queerly, satdown again and swore. "Every darned gate in town, just about, has gotan orange tree stuck somewhere handy by. I remember 'em now, damn'em!"
Three cigarettes he smoked while he sat there. When he started onagain his face was grimly set toward the nearest business street. Atthe first real-estate sign he stopped, pulled together his courage,and went in. A girl sat in a corner of the room before a typewriter.Andy saw at a g
lance that her hair was too dark; murmured somethingand backed out. At the next place, a man was crumpled into a bigchair, reading a paper. Behind a high desk a typewriter clicked, butAndy could not see the operator without going behind the railing, andhe hesitated.
"Looking for a snap?" asked the man briskly, coming up from hiscrumpled state like a spring.
"Well, I was looking--"
"Now, here. It may not be what you want, but I'm just going to showyou this proposition and see what you think of it. It ain't going tolast--somebody's goin' to snap it up before you know it. Now, here--"
It was half an hour before Andy got away from that office, and he hadnot seen who was running the machine behind the desk, even then. Hehad, however, spoken rather loudly and had informed the man that hewas from Montana, with no effect whatever upon the clicking. He hadlistened patiently to the glowing description of several "good buys,"and had escaped with difficulty within ten minutes after hearing theunseen typist addressed as "Fern."
At the third place he merely looked in at the door and retreatedhastily when the agent, like a spider on the watch, started forward.
When he limped into the office of his hotel at six o'clock, Andy wasready to swear that every foot of land in California was for sale, andthat every man in San Jose was trying his best to sell it and lookedupon him, Andy Green, as a weak-minded millionaire who might beinduced to purchase. He had not visited all the places where they keptbulletin-boards covered with yellowed placards abounding in large typeand many fat exclamation points and the word ONLY with a dollar markimmediately after. All? He had not visited half of them, or a third!
That night he dreamed feverishly of "five-room, modern cottages withbath," and of "ONLY $500.00 down and balance payable monthly," and often-acre "ranches" and five-acre "ranches"--he who had been used tonumbering acres by the thousand and to whom the word "ranch" meantmiles of wire fencing and beyond that miles of open!
It took all the longing he felt for Mary Johnson to drive him out thenext morning and to turn his face toward those placarded places whichinfested every street, but he went. He went with eyes that glaredhostility at every man who said "buy," and with chin set to stubbornpurpose. He meant to find Mary Edith Johnson, and he meant to find herwithout all California knowing that he was looking for her. Not oncehad he mentioned her name, or showed that he cared whether there was atypewriter in the office or whether it was a girl, man or Chinaman whoclicked the keys; and yet he knew exactly how every girl typist hadher hair dressed, and what was the color of her eyes.
At two o'clock, Andy stopped suddenly and stared down at a crack inthe pavement, and his lips moved in muttered speech. "She's workedthree years in one of them places--and she 'thoroughly detestsfalsehood in _any_ form'! Hell!" Is exactly what he was saying outloud, on one of the busiest streets in San Jose.
A policeman glanced at him, looked again and came slowly toward him.Andy took the hint and moved on decorously to the next bulletin-board,but the revelation that had come to him there in the street dulledsomewhat his alertness, so that he came near committing himself to thepurchase of one of those ubiquitous "five-room, modern cottages withbath" before he realized what he was doing and fled to the streetagain, on the pretense that he had to catch the car which was justslowing down for that crossing.
He boarded the car, though he had no idea of where it was going, andfished in his pocket for a nickel. And just when he was reaching upfrom the step where he stood clinging--reaching over the flower-piledhat of a girl, to place the nickel in the outstretched palm of theconductor, he heard for the first time in many weeks the name of MaryJohnson. A girl at his elbow was asking the other: "What'n the world'sbecome of Mary Johnson? She wasn't to the dance last night, and it'sthe first one--"
Andy held his breath.
"Oh, Mame quit her place with Kelly and Gray, two weeks ago. She'sgone to Santa Cruz and got a place for the summer. Her and LolaParsons went together, and--"
Andy took advantage of another crossing, and dropped off. He wanted tofind out when the next train left for Santa Cruz. It never occurred tohim that there might be two Mary Johnsons in the world, which wasfortunate, perhaps; he wasted no time in hesitation, and so, withintwenty minutes, he was hearing the wheels of a fast train go_clickety-click, clickety-click_ over the switches in the suburbs ofSan Jose, and he was asking the conductor what time the train wouldreach Santa Cruz, and was getting snubbed for his anxiety.
Santa Cruz, when he did reach it, seemed, on a superficialexamination, to be almost as large as San Jose, and the real-estateoffices closer together and even more plentifully supplied with moderncottages and bath--and the heart of him sank prophetically. For thefirst time since he dropped off the street-car in San Jose, it seemedto him that Mary Johnson was quite as far off, quite as unattainableas she had ever been.
He walked slowly up Pacific Avenue and watched the hurrying crowds,and wondered if chance would be kind to him; if he should meet her onthe street, perhaps. He did not want to canvass all the real-estateoffices in town. "It would take me till snow flies," he murmureddispiritedly, forgetting that here was a place where snow never flew,and sought a hotel where they were not "full to the eaves" as twocomplacent clerks had already told him.
At supper, he made friends with a genial-voiced insurance agent--thekind who does not insist upon insuring your life whether you want itinsured or not. The agent told Andy to call him Jack and use him goodand plenty--perhaps because something wistful and lonely in the grayeyes of Andy appealed to him--and Andy took him at his word and wasgrateful. He discovered what day of the week it was: Saturday, andthat on the next day Santa Cruz would be "wide-open" because of anexcursion from Sacramento. Jack offered to help him lose himself inthe crowd, and again Andy was grateful. For the first time sinceleaving the Flying U he went to bed feeling not utterly alone andfriendless, and awoke pleasantly expectant. Friend Jack was to pilothim down to the Casino at eleven, and he had incidentally made oneprediction which stuck closely to Andy, even in his sleep. Jack hadassured him that the whole town would be at the beach; and if thewhole town were at the beach, why then, Mary would surely be somewherein the crowd. And if she were in the crowd--"If she's there, I'll sureget a line on her before night," Andy told himself, with muchassurance. "A fellow that's been in the habit of cutting any certainbrand of critter out of a big herd ought to be able to spot his girlin a crowd"--and he hummed softly while he dressed.
The excursion train was already in town, and the esplanade was,looking down from Beach Hill, a slow-moving river of hats, withsplotches of bright colors and with an outer fringe of men and women."That's a good-sized trail-herd uh humans," Andy remarked, and theinsurance agent laughed appreciatively.
"You wait till you see them milling around on the board walk," headvised impressively. "If you happen to be looking for anybody, you'llrealize that there's some people scattered around in your vicinity. Ihad a date with a girl, down here one Sunday during the season, and wehunted each other from ten in the morning till ten at night and nevergot sight of each other."
Andy gave him a sidelong, suspicious glance, but friend Jack wasevidently as innocent as he looked, and so Andy limped silently downthe hill to the Casino and wondered if fate were going to cheat him atthe last moment.
Once in the crowd, it was as Jack had told him it would be. He couldnot regard the moving mass of humanity as individuals, though longliving where men are few had fixed upon him the habit. Now, althoughhe observed far more than did Jack, he felt somewhat at a loss; therealization that Mary Johnson might pass him unrecognized troubled himgreatly. It did not once occur to him that he, with his gray Stetsonhat and his brown face and keen eyes and tall, straight-backed figure,looked not at all like the thousands of men all around him, so thatmany eyes turned to give him another glance when he passed. MaryJohnson must be unobserving in the extreme if she failed to know him,once she glimpsed him in the crowd.
Somewhere near one o'clock he lost Jack completely, and driftedaimlessly alo
ne. Jack had been hailed by a friend, had stopped for aminute to talk, and several hundred men, women and children had comebetween him and Andy, pushing and crowding and surging, because a bandhad started playing somewhere. Andy got down the steps and out uponthe sand, and Jack was thereafter but a memory. He found the loosesand hard walking with his lame leg, and almost as crowded as thepromenade, and as he stood for a minute looking up at the board walkabove him, it occurred to him that if he could get somewhere and staythere long enough, every human being at the Casino would eventuallypass by him. He went up the steps again and worked his way along theedge of the walk until he found a vacant spot on the railing and satgrimly down upon it to wait.
Many cigarettes he smoked while he roosted there, watching until theeyes of him ached with the eternal panorama of faces that werestrange. Many times he started eagerly because he glimpsed a fluffy,blond pompadour with blue eyes beneath, and fancied for an instantthat it was Mary.
Then, when he was speculating upon the advisability of following thestream of people that flowed out upon the pleasure pier, Mary passedby so close that her skirt brushed his toes; passed him by, and he satthere like a paralytic and let her go. And in the heart of him was aqueer, heavy throb that he did not in the least understand.
She was dressed in blue linen with heavy, white lace in patches hereand there, and she had a big, white hat tilted back from her face anda long white plume drooping to one shoulder. Another girl was withher, and a man--a man with dented panama hat and pink cheeks and awhite waistcoat and tan shoes; a man whom Andy suddenly hated mostunreasonably.
When they were all but lost in the crowd, Andy got down, gripped hiscane vindictively and followed. After all, the man was walking besidethe other girl, and not beside Mary--and the reflection brought muchsolace. With the nodding, white feather to guide him, he followed themdown the walk, lost them for a second, saw them turn in at thewide-open doors of the natatorium, saw them pause there, just inside.Then a huge woman pushed before him, stood there and narrowed hisrange of vision down to her own generous hat with its huge roses, andwhen he had edged past her the three were gone.
Andy waited, comforted by the knowledge that they had not come out,until the minutes passed his patience and he went in, searched thegallery unavailingly, came out again and wandered on dispiritedly tothe pleasure pier. There, leaning over the rail, he saw her againalmost beneath him in the sand, scantily clad in a bathing suit. Theman, still more scantily clad, was trying to coax her into the waterand she was hanging back and laughing a good deal, with an occasionalsqueal.
Andy leaned rather heavily upon the railing and watched hergloweringly, incredulously. Custom has much to do with a man's (or awoman's) idea of propriety, and one Andrew Green had for long beenunaccustomed to the sight of nice young women disporting themselvesthus in so public a place. He could not reconcile it with the girl ashe had known her in her father's cabin, and he was not at all surethat he wanted to do so.
He was just turning gloomily away when she glanced up, saw him andwaved her hand. "Hello, Andy," she called gaily. "Come on down andtake a swim, why don't you?"
Andy, looking reproachfully into her upturned face, shook his head. "Ican't," he told her. "I'm lame yet." It was not at all what he hadmeant to say, any more than this was the meeting he had dreamed about.He resented both with inner rage.
"Oh. When did you come?" she asked casually, and was whisked away bythe man before Andy could tell her. The other girl was there also, andthe three ran gleefully down to meet a roller larger than the othershad been; met it, were washed, with much screaming and laughter, backto shore and stood there dripping. Andy glared down upon them andlonged for the privilege of drowning the fellow.
"We're going up into the plunge," called Mary. "Come on. I'll see you,when I come out." They scampered away, and he, calling himself manykinds of fool, followed.
In the plunge, Andy was still more at a disadvantage, for since he wasa spectator, a huge sign informed him that he must go up stairs. Hewent up with much difficulty into the gallery, found himself a seatnext the rail and searched long for Mary among the bathers below. Hewould never have believed that he would fail to know her at sight, butwith fifty women, more or less, dressed exactly alike and with uglyrubber caps pulled down to eyebrows and ears, recognition mustnecessarily be slow.
While he leaned and stared, an avalanche of squeals came precipitatelydown the great slide; struck the water and was transformed to gurglingscreams, and then heads came bobbing to the surface--three heads, andone of them was Mary's. She swept the water from her eyes, looked upand saw him, waved her hand and scrambled rather ungracefully over therail in her wet, clinging suit. The others followed, the man trottingat her heels and calling something after her.
Andy, his brows pulled down over unhappy eyes, glared fixedly up atthe top of the slide. In a minute they appeared, held gesticulatingcounsel, wavered and came down together, upon their stomachs. Thestrange girl was in the lead, with Mary next holding to the girl'sfeet. Behind her slid the man, gripping tightly the ankles of Mary.Andy's teeth set savagely together, though he saw that others weredoing exactly the same; old women, young women, girls, men and boyscame hurtling down the big slide, singly, in couples, in three andfours.
The spectacle began to fascinate him, so that for a minute or two hecould forget Mary and the man. There was a roar of voices, the barkingas of seals, screams, laughter and much splashing. Men and women dovefrom the sides like startled frogs into a pond; they swam, floated andstood panting along the walls; swung from the trapeze (Andy,remembering his career with the circus, when he was "Andre de Greno,"Champion Bareback Rider of the Western Hemisphere, wished that his legwas well so that he could show them a few things about that trapezebusiness) and troubled the waters with much splashing. He could notkeep Mary always in view, but when he did get sight of her she seemedto be having a very good time, and not to be worrying in the leastabout him and his sins.
Twice Andy Green half rose from his seat, meaning to leave the plunge,the Casino and the whole merry-making crowd; but each time he settledback, telling himself that he hated a quitter, and that he guessedhe'd buy a few more chips and stay in the game.
It seemed a long time before Mary finally emerged in the blue linenand the white hat, but Andy was waiting doggedly at the entrance andtook his place beside her, forcing the man to walk beside the girlwhom Mary introduced as Lola Parsons. The man's name was Roberts, butthe girls called him Freddie, and he seemed composed mostly of aself-satisfied smile and the latest fad in male attire. Andy sethimself to the task of "cutting Mary out of the main herd" so that hemight talk with her. Thus it happened that, failing a secluded spot inthe immediate neighborhood of the Casino, which buzzed like adisturbed hive of gigantic bees, Mary presently found herself on a carthat was clanging its signal of departure, and there was no sign ofFreddie and Lola Parsons.
"We lost 'em, back there," Andy told her calmly when she inquired."And as to where we're going, I don't know; as far as thislightning-wagon will take us."
"This car goes clear out to the Cliffs," Mary said discouragingly.
"All right. We're going out to the cliffs, then," Andy smiled blandlydown upon the nodding, white feather in her hat.
"But I promised Lola and Freddie--"
"Oh, that's all right. I'll take the blame. Were yuh surprised to seeme here?"
"Why should I be? Everybody comes to Santa Cruz, sooner or later."
"I came sooner," said Andy, trying to meet her eye. He wanted to bringthe conversation to themselves, so that he might explain and justifyhimself, and win forgiveness for his sins.
While they walked along the cliffs he tried, and going home he had notgiven up the attempt. But afterward, when he could sit down quietlyand think, he was forced to admit that he had not succeeded very well.It seemed to him that, while Mary still liked him and was quite readyto be friends, she had forgotten just why she had so suddenly leftMontana. She was sorry he had broken his leg, but in the sam
e breath,almost, she told him of such a narrow escape that Freddie had lastweek, when an auto nearly ran him down. Andy regretted keenly that ithad not.
He had mentioned Irish and Jack Bates, meaning to refute the talesthey had told of him, and she had asked about the black lamb and thewhite, and then had told him that he must go out to the whistling buoyand see the real whale they had anchored out there, and related withmuch detail how Freddie had taken her and Lola out, and how the waterwas so rough she got seasick, and a wave splashed over and ruinedFreddie's new summer suit, that spotted dreadfully; it wasn't, sheremarked, a durable color. She hoped Andy would stay a month or two,though the "season" was about over. She knew he would just love theplunge and the surf-bathing, and there was going to be a boomers'barbacue up at the Big Trees in two weeks--and it would seem like hometo him, seeing a cow roasted whole! She did love Montana, and shehoped he brought his chaps and spurs along, for she had told Lola somuch about him, and she wanted Lola to see him in his Wild Westclothes.
All this should have pleased Andy very much. She had not grown cold,and her eyes were quite as teasing and her smiles as luring as before.She did not even lay personal claim to Freddie, that he should bejealous. When she spoke of Freddie, his name was linked with LolaParsons, and Andy could not glean that she had ever gone anywherealone with him. She had seemed anxious that he should enjoy hisvacation to the limit, and had mentioned three or four places that hemust surely see, and informed him three times that she was "off" atfive every evening, and could show him around.
They had dined together at a cafe, and had gone back to the Casino forthe band concert, and they had not been interrupted by meeting LolaParsons and Freddie, and she had given him a very cordial good-nightwhen they parted on the steps of her boarding house at eleven.
So there was absolutely no reason for the mood Andy was in when heaccepted his key from the hotel clerk and went up to his room. For aman who has traveled more than a thousand miles in search of the girlhe had dreamed of o'nights, and who had found her and had beenproperly welcomed, he was distinctly gloomy. He sat down by the openwindow and smoked four cigarettes, said "Damn Freddy!" three times andwith added emphasis each time, though he knew very well that Freddiehad nothing to do with it, and then went to bed.
In the morning he felt better, and went out by himself to the cliffswhere they had been before, and sat down on a hummock covered withshort grass, and watched the great unrest of the ocean, and wonderedwhere the Flying U wagons would be camping, that night. Somehow, thewide reach of water reminded him of the prairie; the rolling billowswere like many, many cattle milling restlessly in a vast herd andtossing white heads and horns upward. Below him, the pounding surf wasto him the bellowing of a thirsty herd corralled.
"This is sure all right," he approved, rousing a little. "It's almostas good as sitting up on a pinnacle and looking out over the range. IfI had a good hoss, and my riding outfit, and could get out there andgo to work cutting-out them white-caps and hazing 'em up here on arun, it wouldn't be so poor. By gracious, this is worth the trip, allright." It never occurred to Andy that there was anything strange inthe remark, or that he sat there because it dulled the heavy ache thathad been his since yesterday--the ache of finding what he had sought,and finding with it disillusionment.
Till hunger drove him away he stayed, and his dreams were of the wideland he had left. When he again walked down Pacific Avenue the hallclock struck four, and after he had eaten he looked up at it and sawthat it lacked but fifteen minutes of five.
"I'm supposed to meet her when she quits work," he remembered, "andLola and Freddie will go to the plunge with us." He stopped and staredin at the window of a curio store. "Say, that's a dandy Navajoblanket," he murmured. "It would be out-uh-sight for a saddleblanket." He started on, hesitated and went back. "I've got timeenough to get it," he explained to himself. He went in, bought theblanket and two Mexican _serapes_ that caught his fancy, tucked thebundle under his arm and started down the street toward the officewhere Mary worked. It was just two minutes _to five_.
He got almost to the door--so near that his toe struck against acorner of the belabelled bulletin board--when a sudden revulsion swepthis desires back like a huge wave. He stood a second irresolutely andthen turned back. "Aw--hell! What's the use?" he muttered.
The clock was just on the last stroke of five when he went up to theclerk in his hotel. "Say, when does the next train pull out?--I don'tgive a darn in what direction," he wanted to know. When the clerk toldhim seven-thirty, he grinned and became undignifiedly loquacious.
"I want to show yuh a couple of dandy _serapes_ I just glommed, downstreet," he said, and rolled the bundle open upon the desk. "Ain'tthey a couple uh beauts? I got 'em for two uh my friends; they done mea big favor, a month or two ago, and I wanted to kinda square thedeal. That's why I got 'em just alike. Yes, you bet they're peaches;yuh can't get 'em like this in Montana. The boys'll sure appreciate'em." He retied the bundle, took his room-key from the hand of thesmiling clerk and started up the stairway, humming a tune under hisbreath as he went.
At the first turn he stopped and looked back. "Send the bell-hop up towake me at seven," he called down to the clerk. "I'm going to take amuch-needed nap--and it'll be all your life's worth to let me missthat train!"
* * * * *