“Oh, no; he was just about an average man. He had a camp close by, and let me warm and dry myself by his fire; gave me some coffee and food when he saw that I wasn’t going to hurt him, but I don’t believe he shut an eye that entire night. He was so anxious to get rid of me in the morning that he gave me an old hat and coat, and that was the rig I wore when I returned to Comanche.”
“The hotel-keeper gave you the message that we left?” she asked.
“He was surly and ungracious, said he didn’t know where you were. I was of the opinion that you had turned my baggage over to him, and that he found it convenient to forget all about it.”
“We brought it here–it’s in my room now; and we told him when we left where we were going, Mr. Bentley and I.”
“Well, what little money I had was in my instrument-case,” said he. “So I was up against it right. I knew there was no use in lodging a complaint against Shanklin, for I had no proof against him, and never 201 could convince a jury that I was in my right mind if I should tell my story in court. So I let that pass.”
“It was a miraculous deliverance from death!” Agnes exclaimed, taking her breath freely again. Tears mounted to her eyes as she measured Dr. Slavens’ rugged frame as if with a new interest in beholding a common pattern which had withstood so much.
He told her of meeting Mackenzie, and of finding the lost die; of the raid they had made by means of it on Shanklin’s money; of his discovery of the midnight extra in the pockets of the gambler’s coat.
“So there you have it all,” said he, smiling in embarrassment as if the relation of so much about himself seemed inexcusable. “Anyway, all of the first part of the story. The rest is all on dry land, and not interesting at all.”
“But you hadn’t had time to look over the land; you didn’t know the good locations from the worthless,” said she. “How did you pick out the claim you filed on?”
“Well, there’s a little more of the story, it seems, after all. There was a plot between Shanklin and another to file Peterson on a certain tract and then buy him out, I suppose.”