Mrs. Barrett emptied her cup bravely. “When shall we call again?” she asked.
“You need not come again,” Fong Wu replied. “Each day you have only to dampen the bandages from these.” He handed her a green-flowered box containing twelve tiny compartments; in each was a phial.
“And I sha’n’t have to take any more of this—this awful stuff?” she demanded gaily, giving back the cup.
“No.”
“Ah! And now, I want to thank you again, with all my heart. Here”—she reached into the pocket of her walking-skirt—“here is something for your trouble.” Two double-eagles lay on her open palm.
Fong Wu frowned at them. “I take no money,” he said, a trifle gruffly. And as she got into the cart, he closed the door of his home behind him.
It was a week before Mrs. Barrett again took up her rides for the mail. When she did, Fong Wu did not fail to be on his porch as she passed. For each evening, as she cantered up the road, spurring the mustang to its best paces, she reined to speak to him. And he met her greeting with unaccustomed good humour.
Then she went by one morning before sunrise, riding like the wind. A little later she repassed, whipping her horse at every gallop. Fong Wu, called to his door by the clatter, saw her face was white and drawn. At noon, going up to the post-office, he heard a bit of gossip that seemed to bear upon her unwonted trip. Radigan was rehearsing it excitedly to his wife, and the Chinese busied himself with his mail and listened—apparently unconcerned.
“I c’n tell you she ain’t afraid of anythin’, that Mrs. Barrett,” the post-master was saying; “neither th’ cayuse she rides or a critter on two legs. An’ that fancy little drug-clerk from ’Frisco got it straight from th’ shoulder.”
“S-s-sh!” admonished his wife, from the back of the office. “Isn’t there someone outside?”