At that moment the Silas P. Young gave announcement of its departure by two long blasts from its steam-whistle. Jim came out on the river bank and saw the boat well out in the stream, its paddle churning up the muddy water. Near him was an old man waving a red handkerchief. He recognized Jim and stopped his signaling. 169
“So you’ve sent her home, pard? Wal, it’s a darn good——”
“What’s that?”
“Yore wife. I sent mine too. It’s going to be merry hell in this yere town afore the summer comes round——”
Jim stood petrified. He had half expected this, but now that he was face to face with it the blow came harder than he expected it to be. She was going—going out of his life for ever.... Perhaps it was as well that way. He turned to Hanky, the old man.
“Did you see her go?”
“Yep. I saw her go aboard.”
“Was—was there any other guy with her?”
“No—leastways, that fellow D’Arcy saw her off. Friend of yours, I take it?”
Jim nodded, scarcely trusting himself to speak. The name was unknown to him, but he remembered the man in the canoe who had spoken to Angela a few months before. It must be the same man—the man who had visited her at the camp, and who had dropped the cigar ash on the floor that morning. D’Arcy had triumphed, then! He concluded that the latter must be 170 aboard, though Hanky had not seen him go on the boat. He thought of Lord Featherstone and all those fine relations and friends of Angela’s. How they would chuckle when they heard that she had escaped from her “impossible husband”! His gorge rose as he visualized the scene. They had sold him something only to get it back again for nothing. It wasn’t straight dealing—it wasn’t on the level. They had bargained on this eventuality when they made the deal. They concluded it would be easy to hoodwink a “cowpuncher.”