'My time——' I began, hoping to hasten her story, but she went on hurriedly:
'Ye see, Camp has got so sot and took up with them machines, and windmills, and dead folks, and dry bones down to'rds that south pond that he ain't no company for nobody no more; so this afternoon—we didn't neither one go out this mornin', for we'd been to see Buffaler Bill las' night, and we was tuckered all out—so this afternoon I went with Camp down street instead of goin' the t'other way, for he thought 'twould be a good idee to go in a new gate; but somehow when we got there I didn't feel much like goin' in, seemed like 'twould be sich a long tramp, and I jest left him at the gate and sa'ntered back, thinkin' I'd rest like an' be fresh for a good long day to-morrer.'
'Yes,' I said, as she seemed waiting for my comment, 'I see.'
'Wal, I come along slow, and right down by—wall, I'll show you the place, I'm awful bad 'bout rememberin' names; but when I'd got more'n half-way home, an' was 'most up to a house that stood close to the street, I see the door begin to open, real careful at first, an' then quick; an' then out of the house came a tall man. He didn't look back, but I c'd see there was some one behind him, an' then the door shet. The man come down the steps, an' then he seemed to see me, an' a'most stopped. I tell ye I was glad then that I had on these.'
She thrust her hand into her pocket and drew out a pair of those smoked-glass spectacles so much affected by sight-seers at the Fair, and I was forced to smile at the strange metamorphosis of her face when she put them on and turned it toward me. With the small, sharp eyes, her most characteristic feature, concealed, the face became almost a nonentity.
'Would you 'a' knowed me?' she demanded.
'I think not.'
'Wal, I guess he didn't; anyhow, he give me a sort of inquirin' look an' started off ahead of me. An' who d'ye s'pose he was?'
I shook my head, anxious only that she should get on with the story.
'Wal, as sure as my name's Hanner Camp, 'twas that feller 't changed the money fer Camp; the furriner one that I see in that Cayrow house; the one with the hands!'