Luck looked up quickly.
“Don’t say that. He—he wasn’t crazy.”
Duke turned away and picked up the lead-rope of his burro, and went softly around the house and down past the lighted town, which was strangely silent for Calico.
A few miles out on the desert he stopped and looked back at the lights of Calico, which were now only a tiny flicker against the dead black of the hills. Slowly he drew out a folded paper from his pocket and looked at the scrawl thereon:
I owe you forty-six thousand dollars.
$46,000.00
Silver Sleed.
Duke glanced back at Calico as he slowly tore the paper into bits and scattered them to the wind. He picked up the lead-rope and spoke softly to the burro.
“One man wondered if I was crazy, and she denied it. Forty-six thousand dollars. I wonder which was right?”
And he turned and went into the misty spaces of the desert—alone.
Transcriber’s Note