Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/256

246 all those mothers and wives and sisters and sweethearts on the curb to-day, watching their boys march by, it hit me hard. I was alone. Nobody. So please don't be cross with me. I'm on the ragged edge. Silly, I know. But we women often go to pieces over nothing, without any logical reason. Ready to face murder and battle and sudden death; and then to blow up, as you men say it, over nothing. I had to move, go somewhere, do something; so I came here. But I came on—what do you call it?—official business. Here!" She offered him the wallet.

"What's this?"

"Belongs to Johnny Two-Hawks. He hid it that night behind my flatirons on the range. Why, Cutty, he's rich!"

"Did he show the contents?"

"Only the money and the bonds. He said if he had died the money and bonds would have been mine."

"Providing Gregor was also dead." Cutty looked into the wallet, but disturbed nothing. "I imagine these funds are actually Gregor's."

"He told me to give the wallet to you. And so I waited. I fell asleep. So please don't scold me." "I'm a brute! But it's because you've become so much to me that I was angry. You're Tommy and Molly's girl, and I've got to watch out for you until you reach some kind of a port."