“Well!” he exclaimed, with an oath, “if you ain’t the coolest hand I’ve ever met with, may I be roasted eternally!” Then he blurted out: “Keep on the ridge till you come to the stump of a pine, then turn to the left, past the old Raven Claim, and go down the track—and may Gawd help me when Simon comes back!”
“Thank you,” said Esmeralda, as courteously as if she were in a London ball-room; and the next moment the man was left staring after her, still in a state of mingled bewilderment and admiration.
At noon of that day the good people of Wally-Wally were startled by a man riding at full gallop into what is called its market-place. The horse was covered with sweat, flecked with foam, and panting as if it had just won the Derby; the man was white, almost livid, and his short hair clung to his brows in perspiring streaks. He was covered with dust and without his hat, for it had fallen off some ten miles back and had been disregarded and left to ornament the plain. It took the crowd some few minutes to recognize in this perspiring and livid gentleman the usually calm and languid individual, Mr. Varley Howard, the well-known gambler; but when they recognized him, they gathered round him with sympathetic and curious glances and questions.
“Riding a race against time, Varley?” said one.
“Anybody’s house afire?” inquired another.
“What’s yer hurry, Varley?” demanded a third.
Varley slid from his horse.
“Is the bank closed?” he asked in a voice rendered dry and husky by the clouds of dust through which he’d passed like the Spirit of Life or Death, by the terrible exertion crowded into those few short hours.
“Just closing,” said one. “What’s the matter, Varley?”