"I reckon you'd be glad to hear that I walked here," sneered the
showman, and filled his cheek with a mighty mouthful. He wolfed this
down in an instant, and added, with a wide grin: "But I didn't. I saved
my horse an' outfit from the smash, and enough loose change to bring me
West--no thanks to you."

"I am sorry to hear you have failed in business, Mr. Fenbrook," Ruth
said composedly. "But I am sorrier to see that you consider me in a
measure to blame for your misfortune."

"Oh, don't I, though!" snarled Dakota Joe. "I know who to thank for my
bust-up--you and that Hammond man. Yes, sir-ree!"

"You are quite wrong," Ruth said, calmly. "But nothing I can say will
convince you, I presume."

"You can't soft-sawder me, if that's what you mean," and Dakota Joe
absorbed another mighty mouthful.

Ruth could not fail to wonder if he ever chewed his food. He seemed to
swallow it as though he were a boa-constrictor.

"I know," said Dakota Joe, having swallowed the mouthful and washed it
down with half a pannikin of coffee, "that you two takin' that Injun gal
away from me was the beginning of my finish. Yes, sir-ree! I could ha'
pulled through and made money in Chicago and St. Louis, and all along as
I worked West this winter. But no, you fixed me for fair."

"Wonota had a perfect right to break with you, Mr. Fenbrook," Ruth said