It may interest you to know that this evening Mr. Gretzinger and I are to be married. Privately, with only a few close friends. We depart immediately after the ceremony for New York. Mr. Menocal is to pack my things at Sarita Creek, so you need not bother about them. I understand Imogene is visiting at the Graham ranch; I'm dropping her a note there telling her the news.
With best wishes,
Ruth.
Bryant lifted from the floor and read the clipping. It was a short announcement, evidently from a Kennard paper, of the prospective wedding that night of Miss Ruth Gardner, of Sarita Creek, and Mr. J. Senton Gretzinger, of New York.
When he had read this, Lee gently tilted and shook the envelope. But no diamond solitaire dropped out.
CHAPTER XXX[ToC]
They were waiting in the sheriff's office in the court house in Bartolo. They were waiting for Mr. Menocal. Winship had sent a messenger for him. At one place in the room, handcuffed and tied, sat the evil-eyed Alvarez; at another sat Charlie Menocal, silent and apprehensive and with a sickly pallor showing under his dusky skin; and between them lounged Morgan. The sheriff and Bryant stood across the room conversing of the storm.
"I thought your goose was cooked when that blizzard hit us," Winship was saying.