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"She'll marry Jerry-Jo McAlpin some day," the schoolmaster thought at times; "and have a brood of half-breeds no quarter-breeds and all this joy and gladness will become a blurred, or blotted-out, background. Good God!" Mrs.
But McAlpin, with a cigar in his mouth where no cigar, except a free cigar, was ever seen his face bursting red with import, stuck to his guns. He walked straight to the billiard room bar, and attracted attention by brusquely ordering his own drink. This, it was known, always meant something serious.
"Warn him," was McAlpin's excited word. "You know Van Horn, Belle." Red-faced and heated, McAlpin ambled rapidly in and out of every place where he could imagine Laramie might be. Deathly afraid of running into Van Horn who bore him, he well knew, no love but doggedly bent on his errand, McAlpin asked fast questions and spread the rapid-fire news as he traveled.
"Make a lark of it," said she generously; "take that scapegoat Jerry-Jo McAlpin with you and have it out with him about being a young beast and worrying the heart out of old Jerry, who means well but ain't got no kind of a headpiece. Take your lunch along and " Here she pointed her remarks with a lean, commanding finger: "You take that sail off the launch!
Elpaso, in the end, justified his old reputation by making a recovery haltingly, it is true, and with perilous intervals of sinking, but a recovery. It was while he still lay in the hospital and hope was very low that de Spain and Lefever rode, one hot morning, into Calabasas and were told by McAlpin that Sassoon had been seen within five minutes at the inn.
Behold a woman keeping her word when the need for the keeping is over!" A growing excitement was rising in Mary's voice; she was nearing the end of her endurance and was becoming reckless. By the time the Lodge was reached a goodly crowd was at the steps leading up to the bar. Jerry McAlpin was there with Jerry-Jo beside him.
He told her she had ridden hard, urged her to dismount, and sent her pony in to be rubbed, assuring Nan heartily there was not a man, outside the hostlers, within ten miles. While her horse was cared for, McAlpin asked, in his harmless Scotch way, about Gale. Concerning Gale, Nan was non-committal.
McAlpin had apparently gone home for a while. Walking back toward the office, he remembered the covered way leading to a patio, which in turn opened on the main road. He perceived also that at the end next the office the covered way faced the window at the end of the long bar.
Looking quickly, like a hunted animal, around, McAlpin saw Harry Tenison, white-faced and cold, pushing the bottle in friendly fashion toward him. Every man, save one, watching, hoped he would humor at least that much his expectant murderer. But the barn-boss had reached a state of fear and anger that inflamed every stubborn drop in his blood. He swore he would not fill his glass.
Whereupon she said tartly that she did want to; and McAlpin snatching off his baseball cap, as he did when greatly moved, and twirling it in his hand asked for his money which he failed to get. Yet one man among the hardy friends of the barn boss did find favor at the cottage and he the last whom McAlpin would have picked for a likely favorite. This was Jim Laramie.
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