"
"'Cept your wife; she was down here this afternoon," said Patterson
meditatively.
Mr. Tucker paused with the pie in his hand. "Ah, yes!" He essayed a
reckless laugh, but that evident simulation failed before Patterson's
melancholy. With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner,
rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, "Well?"
"That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the _hacienda_
to hold possession afore the news came out."
"Impossible!" said Tucker, rising hastily. "It don't belong--that
is"--he hesitated.
"Yer thinking the creditors'll get it, mebbe," returned Patterson,
gazing at the floor. "Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whether it's
really hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's a
fixture, you bet. They are a team when they pull together, they are!"
The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigid
in the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window as
Patterson gloomily continued: "But that's nothing to you. You've got
ahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with the gal.
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