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And, Hiram, I believe I owe you somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty dollars the exact amount escapes me temporarily. Now, both of you, the question is this: Do you prefer cash, or stock in the Paloma Rancho Investment Company, or land? The choice is yours." "Tweet," ordered Hiram, "get down off your high horse and talk sense. What on earth is all this, anyway?"
Having no blankets a deficiency he meant to remedy if he could get off long enough to-morrow to ride to Paloma Springs Buck removed merely chaps and boots and stretched his long form on the corn-husk tick with a little sigh of weariness. Until this moment he had not realized how tired he was.
He whispered in his friend's ear, "Paloma don't let me gamble, but if you've got any dinero, get it down on me." Then, addressing the bystanders, he proclaimed, "Boys, if this pilgrim is good enough to stretch me out we'll marry him off and settle him down." "No chance, Uncle Blaze; he's the most married person in town," some one volunteered.
From the way you called Paloma I thought you were. I'm handy around sick people, so I " "Listen!" Paloma interrupted. "There's some one at the front door." She left the room; Blaze was edging after her when he heard her utter a stifled scream and call his name. Now Paloma was not the kind of girl to scream without cause, and her cry brought Blaze to the front of the house at a run.
It was still somewhat painful to the touch, but from the ease with which he could get about, Buck had a notion that at the worst the bone was merely cracked. "They wouldn't be likely to notice where you left the Paloma trail, would they?" Buck asked, after a brief retrospective silence. "Not unless they're a whole lot better trackers than I think for," Jessup assured him.
They all looked closely at Paloma; she had a huge, soft face, with pouches of violet skin, and a timid look as of a humble beast; she represented at least forty years of prostitution and all its concomitant ills; forty years of nights spent in the open, lurking about barracks, sleeping in suburban shanties and the most repulsive lodgings.
"Oh, I meant good-natured," she returned, with a sprightly laugh, "because you're willing to waltz with me." "Oh, well," he returned, sighing, "that's all right." The orchestra flourished into "La Paloma"; he put his arm mournfully about her, and taking her right hand with his left, carried her arm out to a rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance for time.
"Si a tu ventana llega una paloma," sang Maggie in the kitchen, the snapping of the oven door coming in quite harmoniously as she closed it on the baking peppers. Mrs. Chadron sighed. "Tratala con cariña que es mi persona," sounded Maggie, a degree louder. Mrs. Chadron sat upright, with a new interest in life apart from her uneasy forebodings about the rustlers.
White's dinner a certain distinguished old artist from New York, and his son, came to stay a night or two at Holly Hall, on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this occasion to invite a score of her new friends to two small dinners, planned for the two nights of the great Karl von Praag's stay in Santa Paloma.
After that, Santa Paloma heard only occasional rumors: Barry had a position on a New York paper, and Hetty was studying in a dramatic school; there was a baby; there were financial troubles, and Barry was drinking again; then Hetty was dead, and Barry, fearing the severe eastern winters for the delicate baby, was coming back to Santa Paloma.
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