“Oh, it’s all over town long ago,” Walker put in. “He knows all about it by this time.”
“But it isn’t like him to keep away deliberately and shun sharing such good news with his friends,” she objected. 113
“Not at all like him,” agreed Bentley; “and that’s what’s worrying me.”
She watched them away until the gloom hid them; then went to her compartment in the tent, shut off from the others like it by gaily flowered calico, such as is used to cover the bed-comforts of the snoring proletariat. It was so thin that the light of a candle within revealed all to one without, or would have done so readily, if there had been any bold person on the pry.
There she drew the blanket of her cot about her and sat in the dark awaiting the return of Bentley and Walker. There was no sleep in her eyes, for her mind was full of tumult and foreboding and dread lest something had befallen Dr. Slavens in the pitfalls of that gray city, the true terrors and viciousness of which she could only surmise.
Bentley and Walker went their way in silence until they came to the lights. There was no thinning of the crowds yet, for the news in the midnight extra had given everybody a fresh excuse for celebrating, if not on their own accounts, then on account of their friends. Had not every holder of a number been set back one faint mark behind the line of his hopes?
Very well. It was not a thing to laugh over, certainly, but it was not to be mended by groans. So, if men might neither groan nor laugh, they could drink. And liquor was becoming cheaper in Comanche. It was the last big night; it was a wake. 114
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Walker, “I don’t think we’d better look for him too hard, for if we found him he wouldn’t be in any shape to take back there by now.”
“You mean he’s celebrating his good luck?” asked Bentley.
“Sure,” Walker replied. “Any man would. But I don’t see what he wanted to go off and souse up alone for when he might have had good company.”