“Kin you vouch for Mr. Severance?”
“Of course I can vouch for him. Ain't I told you he was a hundred per cent, all right?” cried Bunny warmly. He fixed Johnny with his shifty glance and went on.
“When I first knowed Bob it was in Ogden. He was a residin' snug and makin' a good livin', ownin' a saloon. There was no business man there thought higher of. He had a nice trade and plenty of friends because he was always aimin' to please. He was a married man, was Bob, and had a wife and kid.... Say, when you know what a woman can do to a man! You bet you if I get many more throw-downs like I got in Albuquerque I'm going to cut 'em out! Well, Bob had the happiest home you about ever see. He owned a piano and a fast-steppin' buggy horse,—and talk about your family man! I often says to him, I says, 'Say, Bob, this looks awful good to me and I don't know but you are to be envied, yet it comes over me, ain't a man takin' long chances when he centers all his happiness on a woman like this?' I says, 'Say, it's mighty nice to set here in your parlor and listen to Mrs. Bob hit the hurdy-gurdy, but,' I says, 'are you sure of her?—as sure of her as you are of yourself?'
“Say, I must have had a hunch,—for along comes a Boston man. Say, she was fascinated! Here was steady-goin' old Bob doin' a nice business and never dreamin' that a spider was gettin' ready to drop into his sirup! Well, one day Mrs. Bob and the kid were missin'. Next Bob heard she was up at that stylish place in Nevada where the divorces come from. Bob just sacrificed everything. He wanted his boy back. He was willin' to pass the mother up if she felt like that, but he wanted the boy. Well, say, he followed 'em from place to place, and finally the Boston man come here and bought the Pay Streak over at Alvarado. Bob followed 'em, but the Boston man had the sheriff fixed. He showed Bob the outside of the town—that's what he done!”
Johnny had heard of the Boston man and the purchase of the Pay Streak. He permitted his glance to stray in Bob's direction. He had not liked Mr. Graham's looks from the first, and he was liking them even less as time went on.
“I don't care a cuss for nothin' but the boy,” said Bob the business man. “She can stick to her millionaire,—she's throwed me down,—but I want to see the boy just once and kiss him on his little lips, and say good-by and get out. Folks, I know when I been hit by the trolley.”
“Ain't it pitiful?—and him with his spraint leg?” murmured Mr. Bunny. “Just wantin' to say good-by to his kid before he fans it on out of here.”
“It ain't much to ask,” said Bob gloomily. “And yet I dunno as I shall ever see him again, or hear his sweet little voice call me daddy like he done in Ogden. I reckon they've learnt him to call the Boston man that afore this.”
“Ain't that heart-breakin' for you?” cried Mr. Bunny.
“If he could just be fetched out here so I could kiss him good-by, I'd feel a heap better, folks. But I dassant go into Alvarado. And you don't go there either—they'd spot you for my friend.”