“Who’s he driving in?” he asked.
“Don’t know, sir. He didn’t say. All he said was that he couldn’t take a driver, as he had some one with him and he’d send the team back in the morning with a man from Reno.”
The other looked down at the puppy, rolling it gently back and forth with his large foot.
“When did you say he was going?” he asked.
“Six-thirty. His valises have come up already. They’re in the office now.”
He pointed backward with his thumb toward the small, partitioned-off box called the office. But Black Dan did not seem particularly interested in the valises.
“Well,” he said, taking his foot off the puppy and pushing it carefully aside, “send along the best you have with Spanish George to drive. Be at the International at eleven sharp. I don’t want to start later than that.”
He left the stable and walked slowly down the street toward the Cresta Plata. His eyes were downcast, his face set in lines of absorbed thought. Whom was Jerry driving into Reno that night?
As he walked he pieced together what he had just heard with what he knew already. One hour before the dinner to the Easterners—at which he was expected—Jerry had arranged to leave the town, driving into Reno with some companion. The companion and the gray note instantly connected themselves in Black Dan’s mind. He felt as certain as a man could be without absolute confirmation that Jerry was driving in with a woman. The daring insolence of it made the blood, which moved slowly in the morose and powerful man, rise to his head. Could it be possible that Jerry, on the way to see his wife, was going to stop over in Reno with some woman of the Virginia streets?
Black Dan’s swarthy skin was slightly flushed when he reached the office. He said nothing to Jerry as he passed his desk. In his own private office he sat still, staring in front of him at the geological map hanging on the wall. He was slow to wrath, but his wrath, like his love, once roused was of a primitive intensity. As he sat staring at the map his anger gathered and grew.