Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/76

64 nearly arrived at a conclusion—that Viola Reed was the one woman in the world for him.

Nearly, but not quite. The next day Colonel Reed had come and borrowed the first fifty dollars.

This simple action had disturbed John Gault's serenity. The second and third visits tore the fabric of his dream to pieces. If the old man had only made his request once, he would have thought no more of it than of the numberless other loans which he had contributed to the human wreckage left by the receding tides of San Francisco's several booms. But the colonel's subsequent appearances, so closely following on Gault's visits, awoke a sudden swarm of suspicions that began buzzing their importunate warnings into his ears. Why had the old man been so effusive in the beginning? Why had he invited him, insisted even, upon his calling? Was he so determinedly hospitable merely to secure a listener to his reminiscences? And if he had acted upon his own impulses at first,—which certainly seemed the case,—Viola could have stopped him later on. Gault had noticed that her word seemed law to her father.

In the pain of his doubts he surreptitiously made inquiries, and discovered that Colonel Reed's penury was of the past five years' duration. Up to that time he had still held small