Howard got up and shook himself and then laughed uproariously.
“No, but he might be the Rahway murderer. You’d better lock the door fast and tight at night.” (This was a stab at my well-known cowardice.)
“And, little mother, if you think you have got hold of a delightful, bloody mystery, for the love of heaven keep still about it. A little talk will set a cyclone going if you’re not particular.”
I resented this caution as quite unnecessary, but Howard laughed and shook his finger at me. I think he is at the age when a young man feels his physical and political superiority over his mother very fully. After he had gone out I sat thinking over his new idea. I had a faint suspicion that Howard was amusing himself at my interest in the matter, and was starting me in pursuit of something that he knew perfectly well beforehand; yet every word that he had said was fastened in my memory, and many little unnoticed things now came up to strengthen my suspicions.
In Crouch, the evil-looking fellow, I had no interest, for he was not mysterious. He was a rascal at the first glance, and could not be anything else. And he was the sort of rascal that one is content not to investigate, but observe at the greatest possible distance.
What, then, was young Reynolds’ interest in him? I intended to write home the next day to ask about the Mansfield brothers, but Howard carried me off to the mines to camp for a few days, and my thoughts were turned in a new direction.
The day after my return I went out for a walk through the town. I crossed the plaza and started down one of the diverging streets, when I suddenly found myself in a most unsavory neighborhood, and suspected that I must have crossed the “dead line,” beyond which I had been told no white woman ever ventured. I turned to beat a hasty retreat, when I heard my name, and looking up saw Charlie Reynolds, apparently very drunk, issuing from the door of a dance saloon. One or two of his friends were smoking in the doorway. “Good evening, Mish Spencer,” he said, with an aggravated bow. “Thish bad place for lady. See you home, Mish Spencer?”
“No,” I said, “you can’t see me home, but I will see you home. You walk on before me, and I will follow.”