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"He said you were sick down at Flores's rancho." "Then he's here!" And Pete's dulling eyes brightened. "Well, I ain't as sick as he's goin' to be, Spider." Pete was surprised to find the darkened saloon cooler than the open desert, even at dawn; and he realized, after glancing about, that The Spider had closed the doors and windows during the night to shut out the heat.
The next morning there was no indication of forthcoming glories, except that they had less than usual for breakfast; a kind of atonement to which Mrs. Downs sometimes treated her family. Pete sighed. The greetings for a merry Christmas were of doubtful value to him. He was of a foreboding nature and experience had taught him to be prepared for disappointment in the matter of presents.
Some girls from San Francisco, and one in particular as far as Cap was concerned, had come down with Tom Ashley's mother that morning, and he brought them over to the game. Pete Halleck picked him out at once and reminded the others of their promise. Hannah Grant Daly, who did not know him to speak to, also picked him out.
"Come right in, and sit down." She drew forth a short black pipe, looked into it discontentedly, and then sat putting her thumb in and out of the bowl. "You 'ain't got a mite o' terbacker about ye? Hey what?" she asked. Dorcas had many a time been shocked at the same demand. This morning, something humorous about it struck her, and she laughed. "You know I haven't, Nancy Pete!
Mis' Hopkins said she never had such a good time in all her life before." "An' Uncle Tim an' Grandpa Gowin' they was as spry as crickets, an' they made old Pete tune up that 'Money Musk' three times 'fore they'd quit" "Yes; an' my grief an' conscience, Samuel! 'tis late, ain't it?" broke off Lydia Ann, anxiously peering at the clock.
He would perish; he would die; he was all the family she had left to her wouldn't the master come and save him? "Impossible!" shouted Cæsar. "We've our own missing this fearful night, Joney, and the Lord will protect His children." Was it Kate? She had seen her in the glen "Let me get at that door," said Pete. "But the house will come down," cried Cæsar. "Let it come," said Pete.
It was evident that he had some peculiar influence over the Flores household, from the respectful manner in which his name was received by the whole family. And Pete, unfamiliar with the goings and comings of those men, their quarrels, friendships, and sinister escapades, ate and listened in silence, realizing that he too had earned a tentative place among them.
Jes' a-honin' to talk over old times, I'll bet." "I'd as lief forget them days, Jake," Tolliver confessed. "I done turned over another chapter, as you might say. No need rakin' them up, looks like." The big man's grin mocked him. "Tha's up to you, Pete. Me, I aim to be reasonable. I ain't throwin' off on my friends. All I want's to make sure they are my friends.
"If the boys understood he was mixed up with this kidnapping business, I don't know what they would do." "Right, Captain," said the foreman. "So the sheriff took him for being all lit up. Ratty won't sleep it off before to-morrow." "And if they could catch that Pete What's-his-name by then " "Ain't found hide nor hair of him," answered Silent Sam. "Where do you reckon he went to, Sam?"
"I mane to," said Pete, but he had something else to do first. It was the task that had brought him to Peel, and no eye must see him do it.
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