The man beside Fat Joe stirred and opened his eyes. Fat Joe couldn't see it, for it was too dark, but Steve frowned somewhat at the levity which had interrupted him. He had just been thinking about the tight grip of a slender hand which had fallen upon his arm that afternoon when a red-headed riverman lurched drunkenly from a doorway ahead. Joe's words were exactly coincident with that thought and the answer came mechanically.
"Harrigan," grunted Steve.
And in the darkness Fat Joe sighed mournfully.
"Bull's-eye," he whimpered, "and there goes the whole evenin's entertainment! Why didn't you cast around, sort of fruitless for a while, and prolong the excitement? But you're right. Harrigan, that's him! He'd just met up with that fat party who owns the plaster palace on the hill—just met up with him, down the road a piece, and Allison had fired him for keeps, he said. He asked me if we didn't have room for a nice steady hand, so I hired him. And I'll leave it to you if it ain't Harrigan's feet that's mostly unsteady, at that. He seemed awful cheerful for a man who'd just been allowed to resign, but who was I to entertain dark doubts? I hired him; I thought you might like the touch of color his hair'll lend to the landscape. It'll be comfortin', too, havin' him around where we can have a look at him any time we take the notion. Don't you think so?"
Steve's grunted reply was hardly intelligible, but it seemed to satisfy Fat Joe. The latter had long before learned to read the signs; he knew when his best efforts were only wasted words, and once more he gave his attention to the jogging horses and his neglected melody.
Caleb Hunter, wondering after Steve had gone just how much he might have seemed to insinuate, regretted that he had spoken at all. Recollection of Allison's bluff cordiality with O'Mara only made him the more ashamed of his suspicion, and yet the next morning at table he attempted, covertly, to sound Sarah for an opinion, too. She invariably solved his perplexities or relegated them to the limbo of gentle ridicule.
"Just why should he want this East Coast job to fail?" he puzzled aloud. "He's in it, along with Elliott and Ainnesley, even if he isn't in so deep. That is, of course, assuming that he does want it to fail."
The preoccupied gleam in Miss Sarah's eyes promised a reply that might be worth considering, but when it came Caleb found trouble in assimilating it.
"They did look so well together," she murmured absently. "He's so much broader—and a whole head taller, too!"
It didn't seem to be exactly a relevant answer, but Caleb nodded patiently.