Tom Tuttle was much disturbed because he alone knew the secret reason for Emerson Mead’s abrupt departure. He thought Nick ought to know it, too, but he could not persuade himself that it would be the square thing for him to tell it to Ellhorn. “Nick ought to know it,” he said to himself, “or he’ll sure go doin’ some fool thing, thinkin’ Emerson’s goin’ away on account of the Whittaker business, but I reckon Emerson don’t want me to leak anything he told me yesterday. No, I sure reckon Emerson would say he didn’t want me to go gabblin’ that to anybody. But Nick, he’s got to know it.”
After a time he chanced to recall the gossip about Miss Delarue and Wellesly, which Judge Harlin had told him, and decided that he was relieved from secrecy on that point. Still, he felt self-conscious and as if he were rubbing very near to Emerson’s secret when he rode beside Ellhorn and exclaimed:
“Say, Nick, did Judge Harlin tell you that Wellesly and Frenchy Delarue’s daughter are going to be married next fall?”
“The hell they are! Say, he’s in luck, a whole heap better than he deserves!” Then a light broke over Nick’s face, as he shot a glance at the carriage behind them. He slapped his thigh and exclaimed: “Jerusalem! Tom, that’s why Emerson is pullin’ his freight!”
At the moment, Tom felt guilty, as if he had betrayed a confidence, and he merely said, “Maybe it is.”
“I might have known Nick would see through it in a minute,” he said to himself afterward. “Well, I reckon it’s all right. He knows now, and he’d sure have heard that they are going to be married, anyway.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The four men stayed at Muletown that night and drove across the hot, dry levels of the Fernandez plain in the early morning. In the foothills of the Hermosa mountains there was a little place called Agua Fria—Cold Water. It was a short distance off the main road, but travelers across the plain frequently went thither to refresh themselves and their beasts with the cool waters which it furnished. It was only a small Mexican ranch, irrigated by a bountiful flow of water from a never failing spring. Cottonwood trees surrounded the house, and around the spring grew a little peach orchard. The ruins of a mining camp, long since deserted, could be seen on the hill above.