It was a bolt out of a clear sky for the old man tottering on the brink of his fourth pit of disaster, and he evinced his emotion—and the tense strain of keyed-up nerves—by dropping his lifted coffee-cup with a crash into his plate. The little accident was helpful in its way,—it made a diversion,—and by the time the wreck was repaired speech was possible.
"Are you—are you plumb sure you can spare it?" asked the debtor huskily. And then: "I cayn't seem to sort o' surround it—all in a bunch, that way. I knowed J. Wesley had me down; knowed it in less 'n a week after he sprung his trap. He wanted the 'Little Sue,' wanted it worse 'n a little yaller dog ever wanted his supper. Do you know why? I can tell you. After you get your dam done, and every dollar of the make-believe money this cussed town's built on has gone to the bottom o' the Dead Sea, the 'Susan' will still be joggin' along, forty dollars to the ton. It's the only piece o' real money in this whole blamed free-for-all, and J. Wes. knows it."
Brouillard looked at his watch. "When you're through we'll go around to the bank and fix it up. There's no hurry. I've got to ride down to the Buckskin camps, but I don't care to start much before two."
Massingale nodded, but his appetite was gone, and speech with it, the one grateful outburst having apparently drained the well. But after they had made their way through the excited sidewalk exchanges to the bank, and Brouillard had written his check, the old man suddenly found his voice again.
"You say you're goin' down to the Buckskin right away? How 'm I goin' to secure you for this?"
"We can talk about that later on, after I come back. The thing to do now is to get those notes cancelled and that stock released before bank-closing time."
Still David Massingale, with the miraculously sent bit of rescue paper in his hand, hesitated.
"There's one other thing—and I've got to spit it out before it's everlastedly too late. See here, Victor Brouillard—Amy likes you—thinks a heap of you; a plumb blind man could see that. But say, that little girl o' mine has just natchurly got to have a free hand when it comes to pairin' up, and she won't never have if she finds out about this. You ain't allowin' to use it on her, Victor?"
Brouillard laughed.
"I'll make a hedging bet and break even with you, Mr. Massingale," he said. "That check is drawn to my order, and I have indorsed it. Let me have it again and I'll get the cash for you. In that way only the two of us need know anything about the transaction; and if I promise to keep the secret from Miss Amy, you must promise to keep it from Mr. J. Wesley Cortwright. Will you saw it off with me that way?—until you've made the turn on the ore sales?"