Harper took his hat from the table, clapped Bill on the back, and said, laughingly, "I think I'll get out before you tell me any more!"
Marvin urged him to have a bite of supper, but Harper declined, explaining, as he went to the door, that he had to be in Truckee in two hours, and that it would take him fully that time to make it in his car. Bill, anxious to retain his audience, added his entreaty to Marvin's. That failing, he followed Harper to the door, searching for an excuse to hinder his leaving.
Harper paused at the door. "Well, Marvin," he said, "I'm going to send the trucks down here to-morrow and start hauling. And you might as well disappear from here for a while; then, if there's any kick, no one here will know anything about it. I'll keep you posted. Are you sure you don't want that eight hundred now?" He took out his wallet and again tried to make Marvin take the money, but again Marvin refused.
Bill had been listening to every word. Now he seemed to have hit on a way to detain Harper and at the same time prove his own personal importance. As Harper shook hands with Marvin, Bill took an envelop from his pocket. Drawing a paper from it, he offered it to Harper.
"If you want to get rid of some of that money," he remarked, easily, "maybe you'd cash that check for me."
Harper, examining it, saw that it was a government check. "Oh, a pension check! So you were in the war?"
"First man to enlist!"
Smiling, Harper handed him the check to "indorse"—which happened to be a new word on Bill.
"Write your name on the back of it," said Harper.
"I always do that," said Bill, as he complied. Then he held the check up to the light, pointing to the signatures on its face. "See all them names," he asked, "Secretary of the Treasury, and all of 'em?"