Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/340

 ful!" She leaned a little, her voice lowered to a whisper. "I turned Cal Withers loose that time!"

"Why," said Tom, in surprise to hear her make such a tragedy of her confession, "I knew that all the time. I was glad you let him go; I was beginnin' to feel kind of sorry for the old feller, tied up there without a drink of water to moisten his tongue."

Louise forgot McPacken; she forgot the bright electric light, fantastic lure of destruction in the June-bug world. She leaned her forehead against Tom Laylander's shoulder, as she had leaned it against the wall on the day of Withers's downfall, and cried. He spoke to her endearingly, stroking her hair with gentle consolation. McPacken had set this stage for such events; let it come and see if it would.

"Well, I declare!" said Tom, after a while, cheerfully, briskly, simulating a great surprise. "That man's closed out his gripful of books—my last chance is gone!"

Louise was feeling much better. She laughed.

"Seriously, Tom, did you want one of them?"

"I wouldn't take one of 'em as a gift," he replied. "That many ways to make money would confuse me so I wouldn't know where to start. I didn't come back to McPacken lookin' for any receipt to make money by; I come back longin' for a receipt that would make me happy."

Angus Valorous was returning to the hotel with the baggage wheelbarrow at something after nine o'clock