Young Van hesitated, and an expression of chagrin came into his face.
“I’ll look him up. He promised me last night that he wouldn’t touch another drop.”
“Well—get your hands on him, and don’t let go again.”
Young Van left the room, and as he drew the door to after him he could hear the chief saying: “Haddon, I wish you would find Tiffany and remind him that I’m counting on his getting around early to-night. I’m not altogether satisfied with their scheme for supplying us.” And hearing this, he was more than ever conscious of his own small part in this undertaking, and more than ever chagrined that he should prove unequal to the very small matter of keeping an eye on the cook. At least, it seemed a small matter, in view of the hundreds of problems concerning men and things which Paul Carhart was solving on this day.
The barkeeper at Murphy’s, who served also in the capacity of night clerk, proved secretive on the subject of Purple Finn—hadn’t seen him all day—didn’t know when he would be in. The young engineer thought he had better sit down to digest the situation. This suggested supper, and he ordered the best of Murphy’s fare, and ate slowly and pondered. Seven o’clock came, but brought no hint of the cook’s whereabouts. Young Van gathered from the barroom talk that a big outfit had come into town from Paradise within the past hour or so, and incidentally that one of the outfit, Jack Flagg, was on the warpath—whoever Jack Flagg might be. As he sat in a rear corner, watching, with an assumption of carelessness, the loafers and plainsmen and gamblers who were passing in and out, or were, like himself, sitting at the round tables, it occurred to him to go up to Finn’s room. He knew, from former calls, where it was. But he learned nothing more than that the cook’s door was ajar, and that a half-packed valise lay open on the bed.
At half-past ten, after a tour of the most likely haunts, Young Van returned to Murphy’s and resumed his seat in the rear corner. He had no notion of returning to the Eagle House without the cook. It was now close on the hour when Sherman was used to rouse itself for the revelry of the night, and that Finn would take some part in this revelry, and that he would, sooner or later, reappear at his favorite hostelry, seemed probable.
The lamps in this room were suspended from the ceiling at such a height that their light entered the eye at the hypnotic angle; and so it was not long before Young Van, weary from the strain of the week, began to nod. The bar with its line of booted figures, and the quartets of card-players, and the one waiter moving about in his spotted white apron, were beginning to blur and run together. The clink of glasses and the laughter came to his ears as if from a great distance. Once he nearly recovered his faculties. A group of new arrivals were looking toward his corner. “Waiting for Purple Finn, eh?” said one. “Well, I guess he’s got a nice long wait in front of him, poor fool!” Then they all laughed. And Young Van himself, with half-open eyes, had to smile over the poor fool in the corner who was waiting for Purple Finn.
“I hear Jack Flagg’s in town,” said the barkeeper. “I wonder if he is!” replied the first speaker. “I wonder if Jack Flagg is in town!” Again they laughed. And again Young Van smiled. How odd that Jack Flagg should be in town!
He was awakened by a sound of hammering. There was little change in the room: the card games were going steadily on; the bar still had its line of thirsty plainsmen; two men were wrangling in a corner. Then he made out a group of newcomers who were tacking a placard to the wall, and chuckling as they did so.