“Your status as a husband cut no ice with her, Pete. It was purely a matter of generous sentiment. Tell your wife, she won’t be jealous.”
“Ye don’t know her, Buffler. This aire is one o’ ther things I’ll shore keep ter myself.”
There was a pleasant twinkle in his eyes as he rubbed his cheek.
Upon their arrival in Laramie, Buffalo Bill received orders to proceed at once to Fort Grant. Alkali Pete elected to remain at Laramie, but Buffalo Bill and Hickok pushed on to Fort Grant, where they met with old Nick Nomad and Buffalo Bill’s Indian pard, Little Cayuse. From Fort Grant the outfit hit the trail for Skyline, where their services were needed.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MAN WITH A PAST.
The man who answered to the names of Tom Conover and Toltec Tom squared his drooping shoulders and stood up more sturdily on his shaking legs.
“No,” he said to the man who asked him to have a drink at the bar of a cheap saloon near by, “I’ve cut it out!”
The tempter laughed skeptically, and Conover lurched past, his face flushing to a deep red.
It was already flushed and somewhat swollen from the effects of alcohol. High on the forehead was a scarlet nick—a three-cornered scar—extending well up into the hair.
Conover pulled an old brier pipe and a handful of loose tobacco from a side pocket of his corduroy coat, filled the pipe and thumbed the tobacco down in the bowl as he went on, his hands trembling.