“No, he didn’t then, either,” agreed this loquacious stranger, “but a woman can drive as good men as him to drink; and that is about the way it was. No one thought any worse of Overton, though—don’t think that. The worst any one could say was that he was too square—that’s all.”
Too square! She walked away from him a little way, all her mind aflame with his suggestions. He had taken to drink and dissipation because of some woman. Was it the woman whose name she had heard last night? The key to the thing puzzling her had been dropped almost at her feet, yet she feared to pick it up. No teaching she had ever received told her it was unprincipled to steal 263 through another the confidence he himself had not chosen to give her. But some instinct of justice kept her from further question.
She knew the type of fellow who was rigging up the canoe, a light-headed, assuming specimen, who had not yet learned to keep a still tongue in his head, but he did not impress her as being a deliberate liar. Then, all at once, she realized who he must be, and turned back. There was no harm in asking that, at any rate.
“You are the man whom Overton sent to put Harris to bed last night, are you not?” she asked.
He nodded, cheerfully.
“And your name is Jake Emmons, of the Spokane country?”
“Thet’s who,” he assented; “that’s where I came across Lottie Snyder, Overton’s wife, you know. I was running a little stage there for a manager, and she—”
“I am not asking you about—about Mr. Overton’s affairs,” she said, and she sat down, white and dizzy, on the overturned canoe. “And he might not like it if he knew you were talking so free. Don’t do it again.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I won’t. No one here seems to know about the bad break he made over there; but, Lord! there was excuse enough. She is one of those women that look just like a little helpless baby; and that caught Overton. Young, you know. But I won’t whisper her name in camp again, for it is hard on the old man. But, as you are partners, I guessed you must know.”
“Yes,” she said, faintly; “but don’t talk, don’t—”