“Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened.”
“It wasn’t such a heap. She cabled an’ wrote, an’ I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about—about yer mother’s death. That was the on’y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin’ act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks.”
“Have you met Marten recently?”
“He was in Denver last fall.”
“And the child—the little girl—did you see her?”
“Yep. Gosh, Derry, she’s as like her mother as two peas in a pod.”
“Is Marten fond of her?”
“Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he’s a hard man ter move any other way.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Europe, fer the most part. He’s out of mines an’ rails—in the West, anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin’ through a state loan fer the I-talians.”