Thanksgiving came and went, and with, the approach of Christmas came the
knowledge to Donna that her tour of duty behind the cash-counter of
the eating-house was rapidly drawing to a close--for the very sweetest
reason in all this sad old world; a reason as yet apparent to no one in
San Pasqual but Donna herself; a very tiny reason against whose coming
Donna had commenced to plan and sew in the lonely hours of her vigil at
the Hat Ranch, waiting for Bob to come back, that she might impart to
him the secret. Yes, indeed, a most valid reason. Donna hoped it would
be a man-baby, with wavy auburn hair like Bob's.
On the first of February she gave notice of her intention to resign her
position on the first of the following month. Bob had left with her a
hundred and fifty dollars, the balance of her little capital having been
expended during their honeymoon trip and in outfitting Bob for his
trip into the desert, and but for the fact that the thousand dollars so
thoughtfully provided by Harley P. was still in the eating-house safe,
Donna would have been placed in a most embarrassing position. With the
knowledge that she had ample funds with which to maintain herself and
her dependents at the Hat Ranch until the birth of her child, however,
Donna decided to remove herself from the prying gaze of the San
Pasqualians by resigning her position. The fact that her marriage to Bob
was not known in the little town was now an added embarrassment, and the
necessity of conveying to the world the news that she had been married
since October was imperative. She decided to go up to Bakersfield, visit
the city hall and request the clerk who had issued the license to Bob
and herself to give the news of its issuance to the papers. She was
aware that Bob knew this clerk and for that reason they had been enabled
to keep the matter secret.
But the news that Donna Corblay had resigned the best position
obtainable for a woman in San Pasqual--and that, without assigning any
reason for her extraordinary action--spread quickly, and Mrs. Pennycook,
with envious eyes on the position for her eldest daughter, visited the
hotel manager and tried her persuasive personality to that end.
After that visit, there was no need for explanation. Mrs. Pennycook,
with horrified mien and many repetitions of “But for heaven's sake
don't mention my name,” furnished the explanation--and to a lady of
Mrs. Pennycook's large experience in matters of maternity, there was no
heretic in San Pasqual who doubted the authenticity of her verdict.
Of the whisperings, the interchange of gossip and eager speculation as
to the identity of the man in the case, the haughty stare of the women
and the covert smiles of the men. Donna was not long kept in ignorance.
On the fifteenth of the month the manager came to her, announced that
he had already been fortunate enough to secure her successor, paid her a
full month's salary, and with a few perfunctory remarks touching on his
regret at losing her services, indicated that she might forthwith retire
to that seclusion which awaited her at the Hat Ranch. Donna, proud,
scornful, unafraid in the knowledge that she was an honorable wife,
deemed it beneath her dignity to reply. She removed her little capital
from the safe, balanced her cash and walked out of the eating-house
forever.
She had come to the parting of the ways. Her condition demanded the
immediate presence of her husband, notwithstanding the fact that to call
him in from his wanderings now might mean the abandonment of his great
dreams of Donnaville. All her life she had needed a protector; more
than ever she needed one now, and she was torn between a desire for the
comfort of his presence and an equal desire to sacrifice that comfort
to his great work, by refraining from sending Sam Singer into the desert
with a message to him. She knew she could send Sam over the Santa Fe to
Danby, and in the miner's outfitting store there Sam would be directed
to the country where Bob's claims lay. For two days she wrestled with
this problem, deciding finally to prove herself worthy of him and face
the issue alone.
But the time had come when San Pasqual, representing Society, must be
accorded the right which Society very justly demands--the right to know
whether its members are conforming to all of the law, moral and legal.
Donna realized that her silence in the matter of her marriage had placed
her in an unenviable light, and while she was striving to formulate a
plan to make the announcement gracefully. Mrs. Pennycook, emboldened by
the absence of Harley P. Hennage, gathered about her a committee of five
other ladies and swooped down on the Hat Ranch.
Donna was standing at her front gate when this purity squad approached.
She guessed their mission instantly, and welcomed it. Whether gracefully
or ungracefully, the matter would soon be over now, and it pleased her
a little to note that all six ladies were leading matrons of the little
town. Each member of Mrs. Pennycook's committee reflected in her face
mingled sadness, embarrassment and curiosity. For three of them Donna
felt a genuine regard; she realized that their visit was actuated by
a desire to help her, if she required help, to lend her their moral
support in the face of suspicion, whether just or otherwise. The other
three, including Mrs. Pennycook, Donna knew for that detestable type of
womankind best known and described as “catty.” Some one of these three
who knew would fire the first gun in this most embarrassing campaign,
and in order to nullify their fire as much as possible, Donna decided
not to wait for that opening broadside, but to sweep them off their feet
by a wave of candor and frankness, leaving them stunned with surprise
and ashamed of their own suspicions.
Upon its arrival, therefore, Donna greeted the delegation cordially,
receiving an equally cordial return of the greeting from all except Mrs.
Pennycook, who swept into the Hat Ranch in dignified silence, head up
and nose in the air, after the manner of one who scents a moral stench
and is resolved to eradicate it at all hazard.
“This _is_ an unexpected pleasure” Donna said hospitably. “Do come in
out of this dreadful heat. I've just finished baking a lovely layer cake
and you're all just in time to sample my cooking. I'll have Soft Wind
make some lemonade. We scarcely require ice here, the water from my
artesian well is so remarkably cool.”
Graciously she herded them all into the shady patio, brought out chairs
and ordered Soft Wind to prepare a huge pitcher of lemonade, while
she herself carried out a small table, spread a tablecloth over it and
crowned it with a layer cake, seven plates, and the accessories.
The delegation squirmed uneasily. The cordiality of this reception and
Donna's apparent pleasure at the visit, together with her total lack of
embarrassment, placed the ladies at a decided disadvantage. Even Mrs.
Pennycook found it a tax on her ingenuity to solve tactfully the problem
of accepting Donna's layer cake and cool lemonade in one breath and
questioning her morals in the other--if this phraseology may be employed
to designate the problem without casting opprobrium on Mrs. Pennycook's
table manners.
There was a silence as Donna poured the lemonade and helped each visitor
to a section of the layer cake. When she had finished, however, she
leaned her elbows on the little table, gazed calmly and a little
roguishly at each guest in turn, and stole their thunder with a single
question:
“How did you all discover that I am married?”
The silence was painful, until Mrs. Pennycook choked on a cake crumb.
It was a question none of them could answer, and this very fact made
the silence more appalling! Even Mrs. Pennycook, who had organized the
expedition, blushed. Finally she stammered:
“We--we--well, to tell the truth, we hadn't heard.”
Donna's eyes were wide with simulated amazement.
“You hadn't heard!”
“No” snapped Mrs. Pennycook, quick to see her opening, “but we were all
hoping to hear--for your sake.”
“But you guessed something when I resigned my position at the
eating-house?”
Donna could scarce restrain a smile as she saw the eagerness with which
Mrs. Pennycook showed in her true colors by walking blindly into
this verbal trap. A slight sardonic smile flickered across her stern
features.
“We didn't suspect. Everybody in town _knew._ And, not to beat about the
bush, Miss Corblay, we came here to-day to find out. We're old enough to
be your mother and we have daughters of our own, and in a certain sense,
havin' known you from a baby, we felt sort o' responsible-like.”
“Ah, I see” Donna almost breathed. “You were suspicious-like.”
Two of the committee showed signs of inward disturbance, but, having
fixed bayonets, Mrs. Pennycook was now prepared to charge.
“We came to find out if you're an honorable married woman, or--”
“Quite right, Mrs. Pennycook. That is information which you, and in
fact every person in San Pasqual, is entitled to know. I am an honorable
married woman. I was married in Bakersfield on the seventeenth day of
last October.”
“Well, then, where's your husband?”
“That is a question which you are not privileged to ask, Mrs. Pennycook.
However, I will answer it. My husband is about his lawful business
somewhere in the Colorado desert.”
“Who is this man?”
“My husband's name is Robert McGraw.”
Six separate and distinct gasps greeted this announcement extraordinary.
A tear trembled on the eyelid of one of the ladies of whom Donna was
really fond and whom she had reason to believe was fond of her.
“Well, dearie” replied Mrs. Pennycook unctuously, “it's kind o'
hard-like to tell whether, in your present--er--delicate condition,
you're better off unmarried-like, or the wife of a man accused of
holdin' up a stage at Garlock.”
“It is embarrassing, isn't it?” Donna laughed. She was not in the least
angry with Mrs. Pennycook. In fact, the gossip amused her very much, and
in the knowledge of the day of reckoning coming to Mrs. Pennycook she
could afford to laugh. “What does Dan think about it?”
“Mr. Pennycook, _if_ you please” corrected his wife. “We will not
mention his name in this matter.”
“Well, then, what do you think of it, Mrs. Pennycook?”
“To be perfectly frank-like, an' not meanin' any offense, I think, Miss
Corblay, that you drove your pigs to a mighty poor market.”
“It does look that way” Donna acquiesced good-naturedly. “I'll admit
that appearances are against my husband. However, since I know that the
charge is ridiculous, I shall not dishonor him by making a defense where
none is necessary. He will be in San Pasqual about the first of
April, Mrs. Pennycook, and if at that time you desire to learn the
circumstances, he will be charmed, I know, to relate them to you.”
“I am not interested” retorted the gossip.
“Judging by this unexpected visit and your pointed remarks, dear Mrs.
Pennycook, I think I might be pardoned for presuming that you were.”
Mrs. Pennycook made no reply, for obvious reasons. The sortie for
information had been too successful to please her, and in Donna's
present mood the elder woman knew that she would fare but poorly in a
battle of wits. Indeed, she already stood in a most unenviable position
in San Pasqual society, as the leader of an unwarranted attack against
a virtuous woman, and her busy brain was already at work, mending her
fences. In the interview with Donna she had expected tears and anguish.
Instead she had been met with smiles and good-natured raillery; and she
had an uncomfortable feeling that her fellow committeewomen were already
enraged at her and preparing to turn against her. She drank her lemonade
hastily and explained that their visit had been for the purpose of
setting at rest certain unpleasant rumors in San Pasqual, wherein
Donna's reputation had suffered. If the rumors had proved to be without
foundation they would have felt it their business to nip the scandal in
the bud. If, on the contrary, the rumors were based on truth, they had
planned to give her a Christian helping hand toward regeneration.
“I am very glad you did me the honor to call” Donna told the committee.
“I had kept my marriage secret, for reason of my own, and I am glad now
that my friends will brand these rumors as malicious and untrue.”
The committee left in almost as deep sorrow as it had come. Donna walked
with them to the front gate, and at parting two of the women kissed her,
whispering hurried words of faith in her, and from the bottom of their
truly generous womanly souls they meant it. Donna knew they did, and was
deeply grateful. In the case of Mrs. Pennycook, however, she had no such
illusion. She knew that disappointed vengeance had served to sharpen
Mrs. Pennycook's unaccountable and unnatural dislike for her, and it
was with secret relief that she watched the members of the committee on
social purity return to their respective homes.
The following morning Mrs. Pennycook departed on a journey to
Bakersfield, the county-seat. Here she invaded the marriage license
bureau and requested an inspection of the record of the marriage license
issued to Robert McGraw and Donna Corblay on October seventeenth.
To Mrs. Pennycook's profound satisfaction there was no record of such
a license available. Business in the marriage bureau was dull that day,
and the license clerk turned over to Mrs. Pennycook the bound book of
affidavit blanks, which constitutes the record of the county clerk's
office and from which the deputy clerk fills in the marriage license
when he issues it. She searched through the records from August up to
that very day--searched painstakingly and thrice in succession, while
the deputy looked on covertly from a nearby desk and smiled at her
activities. He might have informed Mrs. Pennycook that the record of the
issuance of a license to his friend Bob McGraw and Donna Corblay could
be found in the back of the book, where it would not be discovered
by the newspaper reporters who came each day to make notations of the
licenses issued. It is an old trick, this; to fill in the affidavit
blank toward the back of the book, where the record will not be reached
in the regular course of business until a year or more shall have
elapsed. The deputy county clerk was a friend of Bob McGraw's and as
he had promised not to give him away, he would keep his word; so he
snickered to himself and wondered if this acidulous lady could, by any
chance, be McGraw's mother-in-law. If so, he felt sorry for McGraw. He
sniffed a quick divorce.
Mrs. Pennycook could not find the record she sought, and demanded
further information. The clerk informed her gravely that, aside from
personal experience, all the information on marriages in Kern county
was contained in the book before her; so Mrs. Pennycook returned to San
Pasqual, vindicated in the eyes of the committee on individual morals.
The following day Mrs. Pennycook called a meeting in her front parlor,
and to the credit of San Pasqual's womanhood be it said that two of the
committee failed to respond. However, Miss Molly Pickett volunteered
to enlist for the cause, and a quorum being present Mrs. Pennycook
announced that Donna Corblay's statement that she was a wife had not
been substantiated by the records of the county clerk's office. Having
examined the records personally, Mrs. Pennycook felt safe in assuming
responsibility for the statement that Donna Corblay was not married,
despite her claims to the contrary.
“Then,” murmured Miss Pickett sadly, “she is not an honest woman!”
“_Decidedly_ not.”
“I expected this--for years” Miss Pickett continued, and wiped away
a furtive tear. “Poor girl. After all, we shouldn't be surprised. I'm
afraid she comes by it naturally. There was a mystery about her mother.”
“Well, there's no mystery about Donna” retorted Mrs. Pennycook
triumphantly. “She's a disgrace to the community.”
“What can be done about it?” one of the committee inquired.
“I believe,” another volunteered, “that in San Francisco and Los Angeles
they have homes for unfortunate girls. If we can induce her to go to one
of these institutions, it seems to me it is our duty to do so.”
“I wash my hands of the whole affair” protested Mrs. Pennycook. “I
went down there, as you all know, an' did all the talking and acted
sympathetic-like, an' got insulted for my pains. I'll not go again.”
“Perhaps you didn't approach the subject just right, Mrs. Pennycook--not
meanin' any offense--but you know Donna's one of the high an' mighty
kind, an' you an' her ain't been any too friendly. I think, maybe, if
_I_ was to talk to her, now--”
“I'm sure you're welcome, Miss Pickett. Somebody ought to reason with
her like before the thing gets too public, an' I don't seem to have the
right influence with the girl.”
“I'll go call on her, if one or two others will go with me” Miss Pickett
volunteered. She omitted to mention the fact that company or no company,
she would not have missed the opportunity of taunting Donna for a farm.
However, two other ladies decided to go with Miss Pickett, and forthwith
the three set out for the Hat Ranch.
There was no layer cake and lemonade reception awaiting _them_ at the
Hat Ranch. Donna, upon being informed by Soft Wind that three ladies
desired to interview her, met the delegation in her kitchen, which they
had entered uninvited. She surveyed the nervous trio coldly.
“Is this another investigating committee?” she demanded bluntly.
“Well, in view o' the fact that there never was any marriage license
issued to you an' that--that stage-robber--”
“Miss Pickett--and you other two shining examples of Christian
charity! Please leave my home at once. Do you hear? At once! I have no
explanations or apologies to make, and if I had I would not make them to
a soul in San Pasqual. Leave my home instantly.”
The three ladies stood up. Two of them scurried toward the door, but
Miss Pickett lingered, showing a disposition to argue the question. She
had “walled” her eyes and pulled her mouth down in the most approved
facial expression of one who, proffering help to the unfortunate,
realizes that ingratitude is to be her portion.
Through the aboriginal brain of Soft Wind, however, some hint of
the situation had by this time managed to sift. The presence of two
delegations of female visitors in one week was unprecedented; and in
her slow dumb way she realized that the condition of her mistress was
probably being questioned by these white women.
Now, Soft Wind had been Donna's nurse, and since the squaw was
untroubled by the finer question of morality in a lady (the mere trifle
of a marriage license had been no bar to her own primitive alliance
with Sam Singer) it irked her to stand idly by while these white women
offered insult to her adored one. She could not understand what was
being said (Donna always spoke to her in the language of her tribe, a
language learned in her babyhood from Soft Wind herself) but she did
know by the pale face and flashing eyes that Donna was angry.
“I came to tell--” began Miss Pickett.
Donna pointed toward the door. “Go” she commanded.
Still Miss Pickett lingered; so Soft Wind, whose forty years of life had
been spent in arduous toil that had made her muscles as hard and firm as
those of most men, picked Miss Pickett up in her arms, carried her out
kicking and screaming and tossed the spinster incontinently over the
gate. Sam Singer saw the exit and favored his squaw with the first grunt
of approval in many years. Donna, after first ascertaining that Miss
Pickett had lit in the sand and was uninjured, leaned over the gate and
almost laughed herself into hysterics.
That was the last effort made to reform Donna Corblay. In a covert way
Miss Pickett and Mrs. Pennycook conspired to publicly disgrace her and,
branded as a scarlet woman, drive her out of San Pasqual, if possible.
Donna had declared war, and they were prepared to accept the challenge.
Borax O'Rourke, with six months' wages coming to him from his chosen
occupation of skinning mules up Keeler way, had been sighing for the
delights of San Pasqual and an opportunity to spend his money after the
fashion of the country. This was not possible in Keeler--at least not
on the extravagant scale which obtained regularly in San Pasqual; hence,
when he learned quite by chance that Harley P. Hennage was no longer in
that thriving hive of desert iniquity, Borax commenced to pine for
some society more ameliorating than that of twelve mules driven with a
jerk-line. In a word, Mr. O'Rourke decided to quit his job, go down to
San Pasqual and enter upon a butterfly existence until his six months'
pay should be dissipated.
Accordingly Borax O'Rourke descended, via the stage line, on San
Pasqual. He heralded his arrival and his intentions by inviting San
Pasqual to drink with him, and after visiting each of its many saloons
and spending impartially the while, he decided, along toward dusk, that
he had partaken of sufficient squirrel whisky to give him an appetite
for his dinner, and forthwith shaped his somewhat faltering course for
the eating-house.
Here he discovered that Donna Corblay was no longer employed at the
cashier's counter--which disappointed him. He ate his dinner in silence,
and upon his return to the Silver Dollar saloon he was informed, with
many a low jest and rude guffaw, the reason for his disappointment.
Whereat he laughed himself.
Now, Borax O'Rourke, while a low, vulgar, border ruffian, had what even
the lowest of his kind generally appear to possess: a lingering sense of
respect for a good woman. Until the night of the attack upon her by the
hoboes in the railroad yard, he had never dared to presume to the extent
of speaking to Donna Corblay, even when paying for his meals, although
the democracy of San Pasqual would not have construed speech at such a
time as a breach of convention. For there were no angels in San
Pasqual; the town was merely sunk in a moral lethargy, and the line of
demarcation in matters of rectitude was drawn between those who stole
and had killed their man, and those who had not. All the lesser sins
were looked upon tolerantly as indigenous to the soil, and as Borax
O'Rourke had never been accused of theft and had never killed his man
(he had been in two arguments, however, and had winged his man both
times, the winger and the wingee subsequently shaking hands and
declaring a truce), he was not considered beyond the pale. Had he spoken
to Donna she readily would have comprehended that he merely desired to
be neighborly; she would have inquired the latest news from the borax
works at Keeler and doubtless would have sold him a hat.
Nevertheless, for a long time, Borax O'Rourke had nursed a secret
passion for the eating-house cashier, a passion, that never could have
been dignified by the term “love” (Borax was not equal to that) but
rather an animal-like desire for possession. There was considerable of
the abysmal brute in Borax. He would have been voted quite a Lochinvar
in the days when men procured their wives by right of discovery and the
ability to retain possession, and had he dared, he would have made love
to Donna in his bearlike way. Hence, as in the case of all pure women in
frontier towns, where rough men foregather, Donna's easily discernible
purity had been her most salient protection, and beyond such bulwarks
Borax O'Rourke had never dared to venture.
It had been a shock, therefore, to Mr. O'Rourke, when he discovered her
that August night, crying over a stranger and kissing him. Borax himself
was not a bad-looking fellow, in a rough out-o'-doors sort of way, and
while he had not been privileged to a close scrutiny of the man
whom Donna had kissed, still he believed him to be a rough-and-ready
individual like himself, and quite naturally the thought occurred to
Borax that he, too, might not have been unwelcome, had he but possessed
sufficient courage to make a cautious advance.
He was confirmed in this thought now at the news which he heard upon the
first night of his return to San Pasqual, and with the thought that
he had been worshiping an idol with feet of clay, Mr. O'Rourke cursed
himself for an unmitigated jackass in thus leaving to some other roving
rascal the prize which he had so earnestly desired for himself. With the
receipt of the information about Donna, Mr. O'Rourke unconsciously
felt himself instantly on the same social level with her, and since
convention was something alien to his soul, and possession his sole
inspiration, he decided that he could make his advances now in full
confidence that he might be successful; and if not, there would be no
necessity for feeling sheepish over his rebuff.
“I'll ask her to marry me, an' damn the odds” he decided. “There's worse
places than the Hat Ranch to live in, with a few dollars always comin'
in. She'll be glad enough of the offer, like as not--considerin' the
circumstances, an' she can send the kid to an orphan asylum.”
By morning this crafty idea had taken full possession of Borax, so after
fortifying himself with a half dozen drinks, he set forth for the Hat
Ranch. Also, under the influence of the liquor and his overweening pride
in his bright idea, he had taken pains to announce his destination and
the object of his visit. A crowd of male observers stood on the porch of
the Silver Dollar saloon and watched him depart, the while they spurred
him on his way with many a jeer and jibe.
Sam Singer was seated in the kitchen at the Hat Ranch, enjoying an
after-breakfast cigarette, when O'Rourke came to the kitchen door,
hiccoughed and made rough demand for the mistress of the house. Donna,
from an adjoining room, heard him and came into the kitchen.
“Well, Borax” she demanded, “what do you want? A hat?”
She saw that he had been drinking, and a sudden fear took possession of
her. With the exception of her Indian retainer, Bob McGraw, Harley
P. Hennage and Doc Taylor, no male foot had profaned the Hat Ranch in
twenty years, and the presence of O'Rourke was a distinct menace.
“Not on your life, sweetheart” he began pertly, “I want you.”
Donna spoke to the Indian in the Cahuilla tongue, and Sam Singer sprang
at the mule-skinner like a panther on an unsuspecting deer. The lean
mahogany-colored hands closed around the ruffian's throat, and the two
bodies crashed to the floor together. O'Rourke, taken unaware by the
suddenness and ferocity of the attack, was no match for the Indian. He
endeavored to free his arm and reach for his gun, but Sam Singer
had anticipated him. Already the big blue gun was in the Indian's
possession; he raised it, brought the butt down on O'Rourke's head, and
the battle was over, almost before it had fairly started.
“Drag him outside” Donna commanded. The Indian grasped O'Rourke by
his legs and dragged him outside the compound. Then he returned to
the kitchen, secured a bucket, filled it at the artesian well, and
returning, dashed it over the still dazed enemy.
The water did its work, and presently O'Rourke sat up.
“I'll kill you for this” he said; whereat Sam Singer struck him in the
face and rolled him over in the dirt. Incidentally, he retained Mr.
O'Rourke's big blue gun as a souvenir of the fray.
Half an hour later a very dejected, bedraggled mule-skinner, bruised,
bleeding and covered with sand which clung to his dripping person,
returned to San Pasqual, to be heartily jeered at for the result of
his pilgrimage; for the San Pasqualians noticed that not only had Mr.
O'Rourke suffered defeat, but in the melee his gun had been taken from
him, and to suffer such humiliation at the hands of a mere Indian was
considered in San Pasqual the very dregs and drainings of downright
disgrace.
For two days Borax O'Rourke drowned his chagrin in the lethal waters
of the Silver Dollar saloon, and presently to him here there came an
anonymous letter, containing, by some devil's devising, a unique scheme
for revenge on Donna, and on Sam Singer, who depended on her bounty. At
one stroke he could destroy them both, and cast them forth into the wide
reaches of the Mojave desert, homeless.
The unknown writer of this anonymous note desired to advise Borax
O'Rourke that Donna Corblay had no title to the lands on which the Hat
Ranch stood; that the desert was still part of the public domain and
subject to entry; that he, Borax O'Rourke, might file on forty acres
surrounding the Hat Ranch, and by demonstrating that he had an artesian
well on the forty, which would irrigate one-eighth of his entry,
he could obtain title to the land. In any event, after filing his
application, he would then be in a position to evict his enemies.
This seemed to the brute O'Rourke such a very novel idea that he decided
to follow it out immediately. He spent that day sobering up, and the
next few days in a trip to the land office one hundred and fifty miles
up the valley; at Independence. Upon his return to San Pasqual he had
old Judge Kenny, the local justice of the peace, serve formal written
notice upon Donna Corblay to evacuate immediately; otherwise he would
commence suit.
The news was over San Pasqual in an hour, and formed the basis of much
discussion in the Silver Dollar when Borax Somebody hailed him.
“Well, Borax, I see you're goin' to play even. D'ye think you'll be able
to oust the girl from the Hat Ranch? The boys have been discussin' it,
and it looks like she might put up a fight on squatter's rights.”
“I'll git her out all right” rumbled O'Rourke, “an' when I do, I'll
chuck the old lady's bones after her. I'll teach her an' that Indian o'
hers--”
Borax O'Rourke paused. His tongue clicked drily against the roof of his
mouth.
Seated at a card-table across the room, idly shuffling a deck of cards,
sat Harley P. Hennage, and he was staring at Borax O'Rourke. At the
latter's sudden pause, a silence fell upon the Silver Dollar, and every
man lined up at the long bar turned and followed O'Rourke's glance.
For fully a minute Mr. Hennage's small baleful eyes flicked murder
lights as their glance burned into O'Rourke's wolfish soul. Then, quite
calmly, he commenced placing his cards for a game of solitaire, and when
he had carefully disposed of them he spoke:
“O'Rourke!”
The word was deep, throaty, almost a growl. Simultaneously the men
nearest O'Rourke drifted quickly away from him.
“Well?”
“I don't like your game. Stop it. Hand me an assignment o' that desert
entry o' yours by three o'clock, an' get out o' town by four o'clock.
Hear me?”
“An' if I don't?” demanded O'Rourke.
“If you don't,” repeated Mr. Hennage calmly, “I shall cancel the entry
at one minute after four o'clock.”
“You can't bluff me.”
“I'm not bluffin' this time, you dog. Do I get that assignment of
entry?”
Borax O'Rourke knew that his life might be the price of a refusal, but
in the presence of that crowd where men were measured by their courage
the remnants of his manhood forbade him to answer “yes.” He was not a
coward.
“I'll be in the middle o' the street at four o'clock” he answered.
“Got a gun?”
“No.”
The gambler threw him over a twenty-dollar piece.
“Go get one.”
Borax O'Rourke picked the coin off the floor and shuffled out of the
Silver Dollar saloon.
Until one minute past four o'clock, then, the incident was closed, and
Mr. Hennage returned to his interrupted game of solitaire.