Part 16 (2/2)
With a gesture of calm triumph Bill pointed to the flask on the desk.
”I said I had it, Zeb,” he remarked, in the tone one uses when confronting and confounding a skeptic with ocular proof, ”an' there it is!”
”Why, so it be!” said Zeb, reaching out for the prize.
But Lightnin' stopped him. ”Hold on a minute, partner. The evidence ain't to be absorbed just yet. In fact, brother, we better keep it intact for future use, 'cause you're goin' on a long journey, Zeb. You an' me is goin' to hit the trail again, old-timer!”
”Gos.h.!.+ You mean it, Lightnin'?” Zeb showed almost human delight and antic.i.p.ation. ”But for why? You had a row with your old woman?”
”Nope,” Bill replied. ”Can't call it that, exactly. You needn't worry them brains o' yours about why we're goin', Zeb. It's just that I got a notion to teach some people 'round here a lesson, an'--an' maybe I can bring poor mother to her senses,” he added, gently.
”When we goin'?” Zeb questioned, his eyes on the flask.
”Right away--this here minute, in fact,” said Bill.
Zeb looked at him dazedly. ”Just as we is? Where 're we hittin' fer?”
”I ain't telling that just yet,” said Bill, slowly. ”Where we are goin'
is a secret.”
”Oh,” Zeb answered, with a nod of wisdom. ”I--see. You ain't tellin' 'em you be goin'--not even your old woman, eh?”
”Them brains o' yours is pickin' up a bit, ain't they, Zeb?” Bill commented, with encouraging approval. ”Well, you hit it, all right!
Nope, we ain't tellin' n.o.body. We're goin' to kinder disappear completely for a pretty good s.p.a.ce. Mother ain't to be able to locate me a-tall. There's some others as 'll likely find out, but I ain't worryin'
about them--they want to get rid o' me, an' they ain't likely to exhaust themselves any tryin' to find me. I got a object, Zeb. It ain't none o'
your business what that object is--by which I merely mean to say, old-timer, that you wouldn't have no particular interest in it. Come on--let's get out now, afore they begins to gather 'round me again!”
Picking up the flask and sliding it into his coat pocket, Lightnin'
walked away toward the door. Nodding wisely, Zeb followed, eyes hopefully on the pleasant bulge in his old partner's coat.
CHAPTER XII
”Well!” Millie, appearing with a tray of late supper to take up-stairs to one of the guests' rooms along about ten o'clock that evening, almost ran into Marvin, who had returned to the hotel in the hope of seeing Bill and giving him the full reason for his not being a party to the sale of the place. The lights in the lobby were turned low and he had managed to evade the sheriff, who was sitting in his buck-board outside, waiting for Lemuel Townsend, who was to return to Reno with him.
Millie's exclamation, because of her surprise in seeing Marvin again, escaped her in pleasant tones, but her memory a.s.serted itself and the smile rapidly faded from her face and she gave a haughty toss of her head, saying, as he stepped in front of her when she started for the stairs, ”Will you please let me pa.s.s?”
But Marvin had wanted to see her quite as much as he did Bill, the impression she had given him of her liking for Thomas having cut deeper than the events of the earlier part of the day had given him time to realize. Ignoring her request, he removed his hat and said, as he searched her eyes for some play of the old light that had often gladdened his heart in the days when they were together in Thomas's office in San Francisco, ”I suppose you are surprised to find me here still?”
Millie swayed toward the Nevada desk, depositing her tray upon it. She faced him, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, her cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was not to answer him. She could not understand his interference in the matter of the deed. Neither did she believe one word he had uttered against Hammond and Thomas. On the contrary, Thomas's apparent interest in her and her mother and his constant flattery and attentions had attained their end. She believed in him implicitly and therefore had given credence to every word he had said against Marvin. Nevertheless, the charge that he was not honest could not quite overcome the quickening of her interest which had manifested itself lately in a heart that ran far ahead of itself at his approach.
After a silence in which she stared at him steadily, his eyes answering hers with an unflinching candor mixed with a vague wistfulness, she answered him. ”I don't think anything you could do would surprise me, after all that has happened to-day and all that I've been told about you.”
”Millie!” Marvin awkwardly rolled his hat in his hands, while his speech faltered. ”I've been waiting around here now for two hours in the hope that I could explain to you why I wanted to stop that sale. And I cannot bear to have you believe that I am a thief and--”
Millie was touched by his att.i.tude. Her hand left her hip and started toward his arm in friendly contact. But again returned the whole picture of the afternoon's events and she coolly turned from him and went to take up her tray again.
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