“The rest of the fleet managed to make a getaway,” said McTaffe, “all but poor Goldie. Those Greasers have got him right, too; he's cinched to do a couple of spaces sure. When I reached El Paso, I slimmed me roll for five hundred bucks, an' hired him a mouthpiece. But what good is a mouthpiece when there ain't the shadow of a chance to spring him?”
“So Goldie got a rumble, did he?” said Leoni, with a half sigh.
Her tones were pensive to the verge of tears; since her love for Goldie was almost if not quite equal to the love she bore McTaffe.
Goldie Louie lay caged in the Chihuahua calaboose, and Sanky Dunn joined out with McTaffe and the others in his place. With forces thus reorganized, McTaffe took up the burdens of life again, and—here one day and gone the next—existence for himself and Leoni returned to old-time lines.
Leoni met Casey. With smooth, dark, handsome face, Casey was the superior in looks of either McTaffe or Goldie Louie. Also, he had fame as a gun-fighter, and for a rock-like steadiness under fire. He was credited, too, by popular voice, with having been busy in the stirring, near vicinity of events, when divers gentlemen got bumped off. This had in it a fascination for Leoni, who—as have the ladies of every age and clime—dearly loved a warrior. Moreover, Casey had money, and, unlike those others, he was always on the job. This last was important to Leoni, who at any moment might find herself at issue with the powers, and Casey, because of his political position, could speak to the judge.
Leoni loved Casey, even as she had aforetime loved McTaffe, Goldie Louie and Crazy Barry. True, Casey owned a wife. But there arose nothing in his conduct to indicate it; and since he was too much of a gentleman to let it get in any one's way, Leoni herself was so generous as to treat it as a technicality.
McTaffe and his mob returned from a losing expedition through the West. Leoni asked as to results.
“Why,” explained McTaffe, sulkily, “th' trip was not only a waterhaul, but it leaves me on the nut for twelve hundred bones.”
McTaffe turned his pockets inside out, by way of corroboration.
While thus irritated because of that financial setback, McTaffe heard of Leoni's blushing nearness to Casey. It was the moment of all moments when he was least able to bear the blow with philosophy.