"Yes," she returned; "a thousand dollars." She passed it over to him. As before, there were ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
His eyes flashed with mocking triumph. "If you don't know what is in this letter—if you didn't read it—how do you know that I am to have this money?" he said.
She silently passed over another envelope and watched him with a smile of quiet contempt as he removed the contents and read:
"BETTY:—Give Calumet a thousand dollars when you turn over letter number three to him.
"JAMES MARSTON."
Calumet looked at the envelope; Betty's name was on the face of it. The triumph in his eyes was succeeded by embarrassment. He looked up to see Betty's amused gaze on him.
"Well?" she questioned.
"Most women would have read it," he said. He got up and went outside, leaving her to look after him, not knowing whether he had meant to compliment her or not.
He found Dade and Malcolm standing near the stable. There was a brilliant moon. At Dade's invitation they all went down to the bunkhouse. In spite of the dilapidated appearance of its exterior, the interior of the building was in comparatively good condition—due to the continual tinkering of Malcolm, who liked to spend his idle hours there—and Malcolm lighted a candle, placed it on the rough table, took a deck of cards from the shelf, and the three played "pitch" for two hours. At the end of that time Malcolm said he was going to bed. Dade signified that he intended doing likewise. He occupied half of Calumet's bed. Since the day following the clash with Dade, Calumet had insisted on this.
"Just to show you that what you said ain't botherin' me a heap," he had told Dade. "You're still yearlin' and need some one to keep an eye on you, so's some careless son of a gun won't herd-ride you."
That Dade accepted this in the spirit in which it was spoken made it possible for them to bunk together in amity. If Dade had "sized up" Calumet, the latter had made no mistake in Dade.