She set her hoss into a run then. So I fell behind–and come nigh pullin’ the mouth plumb outen that crow-bait I was on. “Wal, Mister Cupid,” I says to myself, “that Kansas cyclone the boss talked about seems t’ be still a-movin’.”
I wasn’t discouraged, though,–I wasn’t discouraged.
“One of these times,” I says, “she’ll come t’ know that I only want t’ help her.”
Next mornin’, I started my jumpin’-jack business again. And that whack, I shore got a rough layout: ’Round and ’round that blamed park, two hunderd and forty-’leven times, without grub, ’r a drink, ’r even water! And me a-hirin’ that hoss by the hour!
Just afore sundown, she showed up, and passed me with her eyes fixed on a spot about two miles further on. A little huffy, yet, y’ might say!
I joked to that three-card-monte feller, you recollect, about bein’ busted. Wal, it was beginnin’ t’ look like no joke. ’Cause that very next day I took some stuff acrosst the street to a pawnbroker gent’s, and hocked it. Then I sit down and writ a postal card t’ the boys. “Pass ’round the hat,” I says on the postal card, “and send me the collection. Bar that Mexic. Particulars later on.”
Wal, fer a week, things run smooth. When Mace seen it was no use to change the time fer her ride, she kept to the mornin’. It saved me a pile. But she wouldn’t so much as look at me. Aw, I felt fewey, just fewey.
One thing I didn’t figger on, though–that was the police. They’re white, all right (I mean the police that ride ’round the park). Pretty soon, they noticed I was allus ridin’ behind Macie. I guess they thought I was tryin’ to bother her. Anyhow, one of ’em stopped me one mornin’. “Young feller,” he says, “you’d better ride along Riverside oncet in a while. Ketch on?”
“Yas, sir,” I says, salutin’.
Wal, I was up a stump. If I was to be druv out of the park, how was I ever goin’ to be on hand when Macie ’d take a notion t’ speak.