"How do you know?" she snapped.
"I heard him tellin' all about it to Marvin, the boy what sold him that timber up yonder. I knocked," Bill explained, whimsically, "but they didn't seem to hear, an' I was kinder forced to listen in from the outside. Your husband was all het up an' near committin' suicide 'cause you thought he done what he didn't. He told Marvin he bought that present for you when he was in Noo York. He was just a-showin' it to his office lady when you walked in."
"Nonsense!"
"No, it ain't. It's truth. There's some things I don't go wrong on, an' this is one, Mrs. Harper. Your husband's a mighty fine feller an'—"
With a stamp of her foot, the little woman flung away from the desk and, followed by the faithful maid, hurried up-stairs, where—and perhaps Bill suspected this—she buried her head in a pillow and cried and cried.
Bill stood at the desk with his head cocked on one side, idly tapping his ear with a pen. He heard the door of Mrs. Harper's room slam and he grinned amiably.
"Eatin' her heart out for him," he mused. "Just eatin' her heart out, but too spunky to back down!"
He gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling for a few minutes; then slowly he reached into the drawer and took out a telegram blank. His eyes twinkled as he wrote a brief message. He folded up the blank, stuffed it into his pocket, and was turning away from the desk with the intention of seeking the telegraph-office, when Hammond and Sheriff Blodgett came strolling back into the lobby.
"Oh, so you're actually here, are you?" exclaimed Hammond, glaring at Bill. "Have you signed that deed yet?"
Hammond, direct, bulldozing, totally lacking in Thomas's smooth diplomacy, had lost all patience with Bill Jones. That morning he had decided that the only way to handle Bill was to ride over him rough-shod. "Have you signed that deed?" he repeated, loudly.