Harran shook his head, and took himself away, and Presley went down to the stable-corral to get his pony.
As he rode out of the stable-yard and passed by the ranch house, on the driveway, he was surprised to see Magnus on the lowest step of the porch.
“Good morning, Governor,” called Presley. “Aren’t you up pretty early?”
“Good morning, Pres, my boy.” The Governor came forward and, putting his hand on the pony’s withers, walked along by his side.
“Going to town, Pres?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Can I do anything for you, Governor?”
Magnus drew a sealed envelope from his pocket.
“I wish you would drop in at the office of the Mercury for me,” he said, “and see Mr. Genslinger personally, and give him this envelope. It is a package of papers, but they involve a considerable sum of money, and you must be careful of them. A few years ago, when our enmity was not so strong, Mr. Genslinger and I had some business dealings with each other. I thought it as well just now, considering that we are so openly opposed, to terminate the whole affair, and break off relations. We came to a settlement a few days ago. These are the final papers. They must be given to him in person, Presley. You understand.”
Presley cantered on, turning into the county road and holding northward by the mammoth watering tank and Broderson’s popular windbreak. As he passed Caraher’s, he saw the saloonkeeper in the doorway of his place, and waved him a salutation which the other returned.
By degrees, Presley had come to consider Caraher in a more favourable light. He found, to his immense astonishment, that Caraher knew something of Mill and Bakounin, not, however, from their books, but from extracts and quotations from their writings, reprinted in the anarchistic journals to which he subscribed. More than once, the two had held long conversations, and from Caraher’s own lips, Presley heard the terrible story of the death of his wife, who had been accidentally killed by Pinkertons during a “demonstration” of strikers. It invested the saloonkeeper, in Presley’s imagination, with all the dignity of the tragedy. He could not blame Caraher for being a “red.” He even wondered how it was the saloonkeeper had not put his theories into practice, and adjusted his ancient wrong with his “six inches of plugged gaspipe.” Presley began to conceive of the man as a “character.”
“You wait, Mr. Presley,” the saloonkeeper had once said, when Presley had protested against his radical ideas. “You don’t know the Railroad yet. Watch it and its doings long enough, and you’ll come over to my way of thinking, too.”
It was about half-past seven when Presley reached Bonneville. The business part of the town was as yet hardly astir; he despatched his manuscript, and then hurried to the office of the Mercury. Genslinger, as he feared, had not yet put in appearance, but the janitor of the building gave Presley the address of the editor’s residence, and it was there he found him in the act of sitting down to breakfast. Presley was hardly courteous to the little man, and abruptly refused his offer of a drink. He delivered Magnus’s envelope to him and departed.
It had occurred to him that it would not do to present himself at Quien Sabe on Hilma’s birthday, empty-handed, and, on leaving Genslinger’s house, he turned his pony’s head toward the business part of the town again pulling up in front of the jeweller’s, just as the clerk was taking down the shutters.
At the jeweller’s, he purchased a little brooch for Hilma and at the cigar stand in the lobby of the Yosemite House, a box of superfine cigars, which, when it was too late, he realised that the master of Quien Sabe would never smoke, holding, as he did, with defiant inconsistency, to miserable weeds, black, bitter, and flagrantly doctored, which he bought, three for a nickel, at Guadalajara.
Presley arrived at Quien Sabe nearly half an hour behind the appointed time; but, as he had expected, the party were in no way ready to start. The carryall, its horses covered with white fly-nets, stood under a tree near the house, young Vacca dozing on the seat. Hilma and Sidney, the latter exuberant with a gayety that all but brought the tears to Presley’s eyes, were making sandwiches on the back porch. Mrs. Dyke was nowhere to be seen, and Annixter was shaving himself in his bedroom.
This latter put a half-lathered face out of the window as Presley cantered through the gate, and waved his razor with a beckoning motion.
“Come on in, Pres,” he cried. “Nobody’s ready yet. You’re hours ahead of time.”
Presley came into the bedroom, his huge spur clinking on the straw matting. Annixter was without coat, vest or collar, his blue silk suspenders hung in loops over either hip, his hair was disordered, the crown lock stiffer than ever.
“Glad to see you, old boy,” he announced, as Presley came in. “No, don’t shake hands, I’m all lather. Here, find a chair, will you? I won’t be long.”
“I thought you said ten o’clock,” observed Presley, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“Well, I did, but—”
“But, then again, in a way, you didn’t, hey?” his friend interrupted.
Annixter grunted good-humouredly, and turned to strop his razor. Presley looked with suspicious disfavour at his suspenders.
“Why is it,” he observed, “that as soon as a man is about to get married, he buys himself pale blue suspenders, silk ones? Think of it. You, Buck Annixter, with sky-blue, silk suspenders. It ought to be a strap and a nail.”
“Old fool,” observed Annixter, whose repartee was the heaving of brick bats. “Say,” he continued, holding the razor from his face, and jerking his head over his shoulder, while he looked at Presley’s reflection in his mirror; “say, look around. Isn’t this a nifty little room? We refitted the whole house, you know. Notice she’s all painted?”
“I have been looking around,” answered Presley, sweeping the room
