CHAPTER IX
Reedy Jenkins and Mrs. Barnett sat in a cool, shadowed corner of theporch. Reedy took a plump yellow cigar from his vest pocket, and witha deferential bow:
"Will you permit me?"
"Certainly, Mr. Jenkins." Mrs. Barnett spoke in a liberal-minded tone."I do not object at all to the fragrance of a good cigar--especiallyout of doors."
"It is a vile habit," said Jenkins, deprecatingly, as he began to puff."But after a fellow has worked hard on some big deal, and is all strungup, it seems to offer a sort of relaxation. Of course, I think a manought to smoke in reason. We are coarse brutes at the best--and needall the refining influences we can get."
"I think it is bad for the throat," said Evelyn Barnett. "That is whatI tell Uncle Crill. He smokes entirely too much."
Uncle Crill was absent. He usually was. The old chap was willing forEvy to save his digestion within reason--but not his soul.
"My dear friend," Reedy made a rather impetuous gesture with his righthand toward the demure widow, "it was splendid of you to persuade youruncle to lend me that money for the big deal. It was the sort of thingthat one never forgets. We have plenty of friends willing to help usspend our money, but only a few, a very few loyal ones, willing to helpus make it.
"Depend upon it, my dear young lady, I'll not forget thatfavour--never. And as I promised before I shall give you personallyone fourth of the profits."
Mrs. Barnett gave her head a little depreciating twist and smoothed thedress over her right knee.
"That will be very generous of you, Mr. Jenkins. But of course onedoes not do things for one's friends for money. Not but I can useit--to do good with," she hastened.
"My poor husband would have left me a comfortable fortune in my ownright if it had not been for the meddlesomeness of some one who had nobusiness to interfere.
"Mr. Barnett was a mine owner--and a most excellent business man. Hehad large interests in Colorado. One mine he was going to sell. Anold gentleman and his daughter were just ready to buy it. The paperswere all drawn, and they were to pay over their money that evening.But some horrid young man, a wandering fiddler or something, got tomeddling and persuaded them not to trade.
"It was an awful loss to poor Tom. He was to have had $60,000 out ofthe sale--and he never got one cent out of that mine, not a cent."
"What did they do to that fellow that broke up the trade?" asked Reedy,puffing interestedly at his cigar.
"Oh, Mr. Barnett said they taught him a lesson that would keep him fromspoiling any more trades." Mrs. Barnett laughed. And then accusingly:"Isn't it queer how mean some people are. Now just that littleinterference from that meddlesome stranger kept me from having a smallfortune." A deep sigh. "And one can do so much good with money. Justthink if I had that money how many poor people around here I couldhelp. I hear there are families living across the line in littleshacks--one or two rooms with dirt floors--and no bathroom. Isn't itawful? And women, too!"
Reedy twisted his chair about so he looked squarely at the widow. Thesun had gone down, and the quick twilight was graying the row of palmtrees that broke the skyline to the south. Jenkins was in a hurry toget away, but his visit was not quite rounded out.
"You must be very lonely," he said with a deep, sad voice--"since yourhusband died. Loneliness--ah loneliness! is the great ache of thehuman heart."
"Y-e-s. Oh, yes," Mrs. Barnett did not sound utterly desolate. "Butof course, Mr. Barnett being away so much----" There was a significantpause. "He was an excellent man--a good business man, but you know.Well, some people are more congenial than others. We never had a crossword in our lives. But--well--our tastes were different, you know."
Reedy smoked and nodded in appreciative silence. The dusk came fast.Mrs. Barnett rustled her starched skirts and sighed.
"You know, Mr. Jenkins," she began on a totally different subject, "ithas been such a pleasure to me to meet someone out here in thisGod-forsaken country with fine feelings--one who loves the higherthings of life."
"Thank you, Mrs. Barnett." Reedy bowed in all seriousness.
A moment later when he took his leave he held her hand a thought longerthan necessary, and pressed it as though in a sympathetic impulse forher loneliness--or his--or maybe just because.
It was dark as Reedy threw the clutch into high and put his foot on theaccelerator. He was out of town too quick to be in danger of arrestfor speeding. He was late. The three others who were to seekrecreation for the evening with him would be waiting.
And biting the end of his cigar he said fervently:
"Thank God for Jim Crill--and his niece."
Reedy's three friends were waiting--but dinner was ready. They hadordered a special dinner at the Pepper Tree Hotel, served out in alittle pergola in the back yard.
They were all hearty eaters, but not epicures; and anyway they did nottake time to taste much. From where they sat they could look outbetween the latticed sides of the pergola across the Mexican line, andsee above and beyond the squat darker buildings a high arch of winkingelectric lights.
That was the Red Owl.
And while they talked jerkily and broadly of cotton and realestate--and women, their thoughts were over there with those winkinglights.
Just across the line there was the old West again--the West of theearly Cripple Creek days, of Carson City and Globe. Still wide open,still raw, still unashamed.
Over there underneath these lights, in that great barnlike structure,were scores of tables across which fortunes flowed every night. Theremen met in the primitive hunt for money--quick money, and won--andlost, and lost, and lost.
There, too, the tinkle of a piano out of tune, the blare of afive-piece orchestra, and the raucous singing of girls who had losttheir voices as significantly as other things. And beyond that, alongshadowy corridors, were other girls standing or sitting indoorways--lightly dressed.
"Well, are you fellows through?" Reedy had pushed back his chair."Let's go."