"Jude!"
What a ring in her voice! If he had been in doubt he would have known then. No matter what she said, she loved Riley Sinclair. He smiled sourly down on her.
"Keep your thanks. You'll hear news of Sinclair before morning." And he stalked out of the room.
33
Cartwright went downstairs in the highest good humor. He had been convinced of two things in the interview with his wife: The first was that she could be induced to return to him; the second was that she loved Riley Sinclair. He did not hate her for such fickleness. He merely despised her for her lack of brains. No thinking woman could hesitate a moment between the ranches and the lumber tracts of Cartwright and the empty purse of Riley Sinclair.
As for hatred, that he concentrated on the head of Sinclair himself. He had already excellent reasons for hating the rangy cowpuncher. Those reasons were now intensified and given weight by what he had recently learned. He determined to raise a mob, but not to accomplish his wife's desires. What she had said about the weakness of jails, the strength of Sinclair, and the probability that once out he would take the trail of the rancher, appealed vigorously to his imagination. He did not dream that such a man as Sinclair would hesitate at a killing. And, loving the girl, the first thing Sinclair would do would be to remove the obstacle through the simple expedient of a well-placed bullet.
But the girl had not only convinced him in this direction, she had taught him where his strength lay, and she had pointed a novel use for that strength. He went to work instantly when he entered the big back room of the hotel which was used for cards and surreptitious drinking. A little, patient-faced man in a corner, who had been sucking a pipe all evening and watching the crap game hungrily, was the first object of his charity. Ten dollars slipped into the pocket of the little cowpuncher brought him out of his chair, with a grin of gratitude and bewilderment. A moment later he was on his knees calling to the dice in a cackling voice.
Crossing the room, Cartwright picked out two more obviously stalled gamblers and gave them a new start. Returning to the table, he found that the game was lagging. In the first place he had from the start supplied most of the sinews of war to that game. Also, two disgruntled members had gone broke in his absence, through trying to plunge for the spoils of the evening. They sat back, with black faces, and watched him come.
"We're getting down to a small game," said the gray-headed man who was dealing.
But Cartwright had other ideas. "A friend's a friend," he said jovially. "And a gent that's been playing beside me all evening I figure for a friend. Sit in, boys. I'll stake you to a couple of rounds, eh?"