The next moment she was down and flitting on ahead of him.
“The path’s very narrow,” she called. “You must be content to follow the oldest living inhabitant.”
At the gap in the fence he bade her good-by. To his great delight she caught at his hesitating suggestion that she should occasionally write to him and tell him of their life and her mother’s health. He told her he would be up again, he thought, some time during the summer. The date was uncertain. Then, with her hand in his, she said with a wilful shake of her head:
“No, not á Dios. It’s hasta mañana, Uncle Jim. I won’t have it anything but hasta mañana.”
“Well, then, hasta mañana,” he answered. “And God bless you, little girl!”
That evening Colonel Parrish went to see Cusack. He brought with him the title deeds and tax certificates of the Parrish tract. They lay scattered on the office table on which the Colonel as he talked leaned a supporting elbow. The interview was short, and there were moments when it was heated, till Cusack realized, as he afterwards expressed it to a friend, “there are certain kinds of fools there’s no good bucking up against.” The Colonel had determined to recognize the squatter’s claim, and to end all further litigation by making a legal transfer of the property to Allen by means of a quit-claim deed. He talked down argument and protest.
“Why the devil should I keep the place?” he vociferated. “I’m sick of paying taxes on it and never getting a cent. I’ve sunk thousands in it and not got a dollar back. It’s been a white elephant from the first. Allen’s welcome to it. I’m glad to get it off my hands.”
“But the spring,” Cusack almost wailed in the acuteness of his disappointment, “the spring and the hotel! They were going to raise Foleys from the dead.”
“Spring!” said the Colonel, rising and taking from his pocket a fresh cigar—“damned little picayune tea-cup! That spring hasn’t power to raise a mosquito from the dead.”
“Did you expect to find a geyser?” the irritated lawyer retorted.