Part 79

"Could you believe her a petty thief?"

"Without the least difficulty," replied the Dago Duke composedly.

"That she would rifle a man's pockets--roll him like any common woman of the street?"

"If it was safe--quite, quite safe."

Slowly, even reluctantly, Dan Treu told the Dago Duke the story of the Italians as he had heard it in their broken English from their own lips. Through it all the Dago Duke whistled softly, listening without emotion or surprise. He still whistled when the deputy had finished.

"Do you believe it?" the sheriff asked anxiously, at last.

"Emphatically I do. Let me tell you something, Dan: a woman that will stoop to the petty leg-pulling, sponging, grafting that she does to save two bits or less has got a thief's make-up. Her mania for money, for getting, for saving it, is a matter of common knowledge.

"You know and I know that she will do any indelicate thing which occurs to her to get what she wants without paying for it. When she wants a drink, which the good God knows is often, she asks any man she happens to know and is near to buy it for her. Her camaraderie flatters him. She habitually 'bums' cigarettes and I've known her to go through a fellow's war-bag, in his absence, for tobacco. When she's hungry, which I should judge was all the time, she drops in casually upon a patient and humorously raids the pantry--all with that air of nonchalant good fellowship which shields her from much criticism, since what in reality is miserliness and gluttony passes very well for amusing eccentricity."

Dan Treu laughed.

"You've got her sized up right in that way, Dago. I know a fellow that was sick and had to cache the chocolate and things his folks sent him from the East under the mattress when he saw her coming and he always locked the fruit in his trunk after she had cleaned him out a dozen times as though a flock of seventeen-year locusts had swarmed down upon him. One night about two or three in the morning when she couldn't sleep, she called on a typhoid patient under the pretext of making a professional visit, and got the nurse to fry her some eggs. She's as regular as a boarder at Andy P. Symes's when meal-time rolls around. I wonder sometimes that he stands for it."

The Dago Duke looked at him oddly, but observed merely:

"Do you?"

"And you don't think the dagos made a mistake or misunderstood something through not talkin' English much? It sounded straight to me the way they told it, but a thing like this is something you don't want to repeat unless you just about saw it for yourself."

"If they told you they had $5.50 taken from them you can bet it's so. Italians of that class know to a penny what they have sent home, what they have in the bank, what there is in their pockets to spend. Generations of poverty have taught them carefulness and thrift. Americans call them ignorant and stupid because their unfamiliarity with the language and customs make them appear so, but they are neither too ignorant nor stupid to misunderstand an incident like this. Are the men still on the works?"

The deputy nodded.

"If you'll loan me your horse I'll ride out and see them myself. My understudy can perhaps stand another day with the sheep without going crazy. When I come back I may be in a better position to call upon the lady doc and talk it over. She's fond of me, you know."

"So I've noticed." Dan Treu grinned as he recalled the invariable exchange of personalities when they met.

XXV

CROWHEART DEMANDS JUSTICE

The utterly insignificant telegraph operator at an equally insignificant railway station in Mexico loomed a person of colossal importance to Ogden Van Lennop, who had calculated that the reply to his telegram was considerably more than a week overdue. As he went once more to the telegraph office, the only reason of which he could think for being glad that he was the principal owner in the only paying mine in the vicinity was that the operator did not dare laugh in his face.

"Anything for me?"

"Nothing; not yet, sir."

The operator's voice and manner were respectful, but Van Lennop saw his teeth gleam beneath his dark mustache. He had found it quite useless to assure Van Lennop that he need not trouble himself to call as any telegram would be delivered immediately upon its receipt, also he had been long enough in the service to know that young Americans of Van Lennop's type did not ordinarily become so intense over a matter of business.

"Could it have gone astray--this infernal name--it looks like a piece of barbed wire when it's spelled out--is there another place of the same name in Mexico?"

"Not in the world, sir."

"I didn't think so," returned Van Lennop grimly. He continued: "I want you to telegraph the operator in Crowheart and find out positively if the message was delivered to the person to whom it was sent."

"I'll get it off at once, sir."

So this was being "in love?"--this frenzy of impatience, this unceasing anxiety which would not let him sleep! It seemed to Van Lennop that he had nearly run the emotional gamut since leaving Crowheart and all that remained to be experienced was further depths of doubt and dark despair. Had he been too sure of her, he asked himself; had something in his letter or the sending of his telegram displeased her? Was she ill?