how little she cared. But in a moment more she was crying dismally.




CHAPTER II


WELL-MEANT ADVICE

Kent Burnett, bearing over his arm a coat newly pressed in the Delmonico
restaurant, dodged in at the back door of the saloon, threw the coat down
upon the tousled bed, and pushed back his hat with a gesture of relief at
an onerous duty well performed.

"I had one hell of a time," he announced plaintively, "and that Chink will
likely try to poison me if I eat over there, after this--but I got her
ironed, all right. Get into it, Man, and chase yourself over there to the
hotel. Got a clean collar? That one's all-over coffee."

Fleetwood stifled a groan, reached into a trousers pocket, and brought up a
dollar. "Get me one at the store, will you, Kent? Fifteen and a half--and a
tie, if they've got any that's decent. And hurry! Such a triple-three-star
fool as I am ought to be taken out and shot."

He went on cursing himself audibly and bitterly, even after Kent
had hurried out. He was sober now--was Manley Fleetwood--sober and
self-condemnatory and penitent. His head ached splittingly; his eyes
were heavy-lidded and bloodshot, and his hands trembled so that he could
scarcely button his coat. But he was sober. He did not even carry the odor