Bill was left with no alternative but to take his departure, for O’Brien, with scant courtesy, extinguished the light overhead and crossed to the second lamp. His visitor made for the door, and, as he reached it, a flash of inspiration came to him. This man was making fun of him, of his inexperience. Of course. He was half inclined to get angry, but changed his mind, and, instead, turned with a good-natured laugh as he reached the door.
“I see,” he cried. “You mean dollars, eh? Charlie’s collecting some dollars—some one owes him? For the moment I thought you were talking of cattle—greenbacked cattle. Guess you surely have the laugh on me.”
O’Brien nodded.
“That’s so,” he admitted, and Bill closed the door behind him as the saloonkeeper extinguished the second lamp.
Big Brother Bill hurried away in the darkness. He swung along with long, powerful strides that roused dull echoes as he moved down the wide, wood-lined trail. It seemed to him that he had been wandering around the village for hours, the place was growing so ridiculously familiar.
Nor was it until he reached the spot where the trail divided that he realized what a perfect fool the saloonkeeper had made of him. It always took a long time for such things to filter through his good-natured brain. Now, however, he grew angry—really very angry, and, for a moment, even considered the advisability of turning back to tell the man what he thought of him.
After a few moments’ consideration better counsel prevailed, and he continued on his way, his thoughts filled with a great pity for a mind so small as to delight in such a cheap sort of humor. No doubt it was his own fault. Somehow or other he generally managed to impress people with the conviction that he was a fool. But he wasn’t a fool by any means. No, not by any means. What was more, before he had done with Rocky Springs he would show some of them. He would show Mr. O’Brien. Greenbacked cattle! The thought thoroughly annoyed him.
But, as he clambered up the hill toward the pine, his heat moderated, and his thoughts turned upon Charlie again. He remembered that he was collecting money, and quite suddenly it occurred to him as strange that he should be doing so as this time of night, and in the neighborhood of the pine. In the light of greenbacked cattle, that, too, seemed like perfect nonsense, unless, of course, some one were living in the neighborhood of the tree. He could not remember to have seen a house there. Wait a minute. Yes, there was. A smallish log building, not far from the new church.
Of course. That was it. Why hadn’t that fool O’Brien said so right out instead of leaving him guessing? Yes, he would call at that house on——. Hallo, what was that?