Mr. Hennage looked up from the telegram and fastened upon Sam Singer
an inquiring look, as if he expected the Indian to inform him what
good reason, if any, existed, why Bob McGraw should not immediately be
apprehended by the proper authorities and confined forthwith in a padded
cell.
“I do wish that dog-gone boy'd took me into his confidence,” mourned the
gambler, “but that's always the way. Nobody ever trusts me with nuthin'.
Damn it! _Fifty dollars!_ I'll give that Bob hell for this--a-marryin'
that fine girl on a shoestring an' me a-hangin' around town with upward
o' six thousand iron men in the kitty. It ain't fair. If they was
married in San Pasqual I wouldn't butt in nohow, but bein' married some
place else, where none of us is known, I'd a took a chance an' butted
in. I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but if I'd a-been asked I'd
a-butted in! You can bet your scalp, Sam, if I'd a-had the givin' away
o' that blushin' bride, I'd 'a shoved across a stack o' blue chips with
her that'd 'a set them young folks on their feet. Oh, hell's bells! If
that ain't plumb removin' the limit! Sam, you'd orter be right thankful
you're only an Injun. If you was a human bein' you'd know what it is to
have your feelin's hurt.”
He smote the table with his fist. “Serves me right,” he growled. “There
ain't no fun in life for a man that lives off the weaknesses of other
people,” and with this self-accusing remark Mr. Hennage, feeling
slighted and neglected, returned to his game in the Silver Dollar
saloon. He was preoccupied and unhappy, and that night he lost five
hundred dollars.
Bright and early next morning, however, the gambler went to the public
telephone station and called up the principal hotel in Bakersfield. He
requested speech with either Mr. or Mrs. Robert McGraw. After some
delay he was informed that Mr. and Mrs. McGraw had left the day before,
without leaving a forwarding address.
“Well, I won't say nothin' about it until they do” was the conclusion
at which Mr. Hennage finally arrived. “Of course it's just possible I
happened across the trail of another family o' McGraws, but I'm layin'
two to one I didn't.”
And having thus ferreted out Donna's secret, Harley P., like a true
sport, proceeded to forget it. He moused around the post-office a
little and put forth a few discreet feelers here and there, in order to
discover whether San Pasqual, generally speaking, was at all interested.
He discovered that it was not. In fact, in all San Pasqual the only
interested person was Mrs. Pennycook, who heaved a sigh of relief at the
thought that her Dan was, for the nonce, outside the sphere of Donna's
influence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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