That night, when they got to the buffalo shooters’ camp, Hugh opened fire on Considine. The veteran was in a cheerful mood after his meal, and Hugh wanted to start diplomatically, thinking he might persuade him. If that failed he would give him the summons; but he would start with the suaviter in modo. When it came to the point, however, he forgot his diplomacy, and plunged straight into trouble.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve come up here for, Considine,” he said. “My name’s Hugh Gordon, and I want to find out something about your marriage with Peggy Donohoe.”
“Well, if that’s what you come for, Mister,” said the veteran, pulling a firestick out of the fire, and slowly lighting his pipe, “if that’s what you come for”—puff, puff, puff—“you’ve come on a wild goose chase. I never knew no Peggy Donohoe in my life. My wife”—puff—“was a small, dark woman, named Smith.”
“I thought you told my brother that you married Peggy Donohoe.”
“So I might have told him,” assented the veteran. “Quite likely I did, but I must ha’ made a mistake. A man might easy make a mistake over a thing like that. What odds is it to you who I married, anyhow?”
“What odds? Why look here, Considine, it means that my old mother will be turned out of her home. That’s some odds to me, isn’t it?”
“Yairs, that’s right enough, Mister,” said the courteous Considine; “it’s lots of odds to you, but what I ask you is—what odds is it to me? Why should I go and saddle myself with a she-devil just when I’m coming into a bit of money? I’d walk miles to do her a bad turn.”
“Well, if you want to do her a bad turn, come down and block her getting Mr. Grant’s estate.”
“Yes, an’ put her on to meself What next? I tell you, Mister, straight, I wouldn’t have that woman tied to me for all the money in China. That English bloke said there was a big fortune for me in England. Well, if I have to take Peggy Donohoe with it, it can stay. I’ll live here with the blacks and the buffalo shooters, and I’ll get my livin’ for meself, same as I got it all my life; but take on Peggy again I will not. Now, that’s Domino—that’s the dead finish. I won’t go with you, and I won’t give you no information. And I’m sorry too, ’cause you seem a good sort of a young feller—but I won’t do anything that’ll mix me up with Peggy any more.”
Hugh ground his teeth with mortification. Then he played his next card.