The Long Chance

d his wife took their departure. Mr. Pennycook was compelled to return to work and something told him that D

he adobe wall, where he had been lurking, and dodged into the Hat Ranch enclosure. Donna was seated at the kitchen table, her face in her hands, wh

gazed into the face of the

r in his waist-coat pocket. Neither did he appear in public with a bowie knife down his bootleg. Not being a Mexican, he did not carry a knife, and besides he always wore congress gaiters. Owing to the fact that he was a large florid sandy person, with a freckled bristly neck and a singularly direct fearless manner of looking at his man with eyes that were small, sunken, baleful and rather piggy, the exigencies of Mr. Hennage's profession had never even warranted recourse to his two most priceless possessions-his hands. Yet, despite this fact, and the further fact that he had never accomplished anything more reprehensible

mers are enabled to accumulate gray hairs merely by the exercise of nerve and the paralyzing influence of the human eye. Hence, when th

ning, Mr.

n the eye. To-day he looked more like a bulldog t

ef from his coat pocket and blew his nose wit

kitty?" h

store and about the kit

age. I guess she's arou

s lit for an instant by the trustful childish smile, and through the glory of that infrequ

Corblay, have

assure the bad man that it was a very little bit indeed, and all that her mother had been able

st man in San Pasqual wagged his great head, as if to

te man's problem that confronted the dwellers at the Hat Ranch. Rather a queer source, indeed, for Sam Singer to seek help for his young mistress; but then Sam was not an educated aborigine; he was not given to reflecting upon the ethics of any given line of pr

n an' no cost to the estate. Compliments o' Harley P. Hennage, Miss Donna." He paused and rubbed his hairy freckled hands together in an embarrassed manner. "I hope you won't think I'm actin' forward, because I ain't one o' the presumin' kind. I just wanted to do somethin' to help out because-your mother was a very lovely lady. Three times a day for ten years she give me my change an' there never was a time when she didn't have a decent, kindly word for me-the only good woman in thi

e she had suspected Mrs. Pen

onnie! My baby, whatever is a-goin' to become o' you when I'm gone!' I was the only one that heard her say it. I caught her when she was fallin', an' I told her I'd see that you didn't lack for nothin' while I lived an' that I'd keep an eye on you an' see that nothin' wrong happened to you. Your mother couldn't speak none then,

ing up the railroad tracks toward San Pasqual. She called after him. He turned, waved his hand and continued on-a great fat bow-legged commonplace figure of a man, mopping his high bald

high stool at the lunch counter in the railroad eating-house, where he had boarded for ten years, and watch a stranger taking cash. He had watched Donna's mother so long that the vigil had become a part of his being

low voice counting out the dollars, and, perchance, saying something commonplace himself as he gathered up his change! Yet that had been sufficient to make of San Pasqual a paradise for Harley P. He knew his limitations; he had presumed but once, long enough to ask the cashier to marry him. Her refusal had made him worship her the more, only he worshiped thereafter in silence and from afar. She had not laughed at him nor scorned him nor upbraided him, lowly worm that he was, for daring to hope that he might be good enough for

nderstand

heart was out in the desert. He took the terrible blow with a smile

n where something told him she was lying; he wished that he might see her once again before they buried her-but that would be presuming. He wished he knew of some plan whereby that poor bo

. He pictured her as he had seen her every day for ten years, and a rush of vain regret brought the big tears to his buttermilk eyes; the chor

t'll be lonely. I've got to get out. I'll c

to affairs at

e to house west of the tracks, expounding her personal view of the extraordinary situation at the Hat Ranch, a south-bound train pulled in and discharged a trained nurse, an undertaker, a rectangular redwood box and m

shes on her head and cried in the Cahuilla tongue, "Ai! Ai! Beloved," after the manner of her people, while Sam Singer stood at the head of the grave like a figure done in bronze. Dan Pennycook was there, supporting Donna, and made a spectacle of himself. Mrs. Pennycook was there-and superintended the disposal of the flowers on the grave; in fact, all San Pasqual was there, with the exception of Harle

very softly; then slow, stealthy footsteps passed on the brick walk around the house and down the patio to the end of the garden. It was very late. Donna wondered who co

ennycook's big red roses and was reverently hiding it away in his breast pocket. Standing hidden in the darkness of her room, Donna could see Harley P.'s face distinctly as he came down the moonlit patio. The ter

of the house and died away in the distance. Harley P. Hennage had said his farewell to happiness. He was

Bakersfield. In the interim Donna had been offered, and had accepted, the position at the railroad hotel and eating-house so long held by her mother. It was a good position. The salary was sixty dollars a month. With this princely stipend

he demon of jealousy! It is a fact. In the bigness of his simple heart the yardmaster had yielded up to Donna a spontaneous portion of tenderness and sympathy, which first amazed Mrs. Pennycook, because she never suspected her hus

in Dan Pennycook the flames of revolt against the lawful domination of his lawful wife; that he was of the masculine gender and would bear watching. Miss Molly Pickett, the postmistress, whose official duties not so onerous as to preclude the perusal of every postal card that passed through her hands (in addition to an occasional letter, for Miss Molly was not above the use of a steam kettle and her own st

nine genius. She issued an order to her hu

tty finger under her nose. He said something. He said he would see her, Mrs. Pennycook, further-in fact,

hold the curtain rising, discovering Donna Corblay behind the cashier's coun

sufficient to cause us to view with a more complacent eye the mental travail of

nder the long black lashes, and conveying such a medley of profound emotions that it is small wonder that

in (for reasons best known to himself), although we may be pardoned for presuming that it may be because he sees an old, tender memory reflected in Donna's eyes. Quien sabe? He is older, homelier, sandier than when we saw him last,

ce is tanned and glowing, and the halo of brilliant black hair only serves to accentuate the glow and to remind us of an exquisite cameo set in

ing black silk navy reefer and when she puts on her hat prior to leaving we realize that she has not studied male head-gear alone, but has taken advantag

d from a girl into a woman, and we wonder if her mind, her soul, has had equal d

een given the glorious gift of imagination, and dull, sordid, lonely San Pasqual, squatting there in the desert sands, cannot rob her of her dreams. Rather has she grown to tolerate the place, for at her will she can summon up a host of unreal people to throng its dreary single street; she can metamorphose the water tank into a sky-scraper, the long red lines of box cars on the s

cleft chin; in short, a veritable Adonis and different, so different, from the traveling salesmen who leer at her across the counter and the loutish youths of San Pasqual who, despairing of her favor, call her by her first name because they know it annoys her. Donna has not the slightest doubt but that this young fellow will come rushing in to the eating-house some day, discov

is heard in the wings;

loyment, her glance rested upon Mr. Harley P. Hennage, covertly watching her over the edge of his

ise. I'm so glad to see you back in San Pasqua

from his high stool, took

et no beautiful young ladies like you, Miss Donnie. I ain't much of a man at handin' out compliments-I never

hout saying good-by" she reminded him. "If I had needed you I couldn'

er would need a man like me, but you might have needed money. If yo

d, in Dan's name, for Donna's use in case of emergency. Mr. Hennage lived in an atmosphere of money, where everybody fought to get his money away from him and where he fought to

e to the counter at

ar presumin', an' with my rep in this village you know how peo

out of San Pasqual than

eplied Harley P., and blushed at his effrontery. "That's the only

resuming kind. I declare I haven't had such pretty spe

the counter and gazed under it; his glance swept the room; he even, peered under his stool. Final

e's around the house somewheres. I

k, eh, Mr. Hennage?" She came closer to him. "I don't mind telling you-just between friends, you understand-that I ha

er, and choked on a crouton.

tain

se I understand that it's between pals, but you ain'

nd my experienced eye informs me that you arrived in a box car. An empty furniture car, I should say, jud

the evidence and gaz

at'd been a feather, y

en a high flyer in y

but I've come home to roost now. How's

Nothing ever changes in

a bill out of his vest pocket, "an' money sure

ack to the Silve

I supp

black jack, coo

ld gam

you up to f

it?" queried the gambler. "Havin' truck wit' my kind

"I am not the guardian of San Pasqual's morals. I'll stake you

an Pasqual on a freight, but I did it from choice, an' not necessity. The brakie was an old friend o' mine an' asked me to ride in wit' him. But all the same

y P. She gave him her hand. He took it with inward trembling, lest she

e Hat Ranch, because that'd start talk, an' anyhow I ain't one o' the presumin' kind an' you know it; but it's da

kept late. The division superintendent lends me the track-walker's velocipede and I whiz home like the limited. There isn't any d

his quarters she telephoned to the baggage room next door where the track-walker for that div

f affording the San Pasqualians grounds for "talk." And as she waited the moon arose, lighting up the half mile of track tha

in his chin. But even that was none of nature's doing. A Mexican with a knife was solely responsible. Yet, worse than all of these disappointments is the fact that his name was not Gerald Van Alstyne. No, indeed. The Leading Man owned to the plain, homely, unromantic patronymic of Bob McGraw. The only thing romantic and-er-literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed mustang, Friar Tuck-so called because he had been foaled and raised on a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino county. As a product of Sherwood forest,

merge, and pause for a moment before walking out to climb aboard a track-walker's velocipede. In the light that streamed through the open door he saw her face, framed in a

and glide silently off into the night. He had been standing in the stirrups, leaning forward t

"My lady of the velocipede, I'll ma

shake hands with Mr. McGraw, of whom he was very fond, but we regret to state that Mr. McGraw owed Harley P. Hennage the sum of fifty dollars and had owed it for three years

t open, for the velocipede suddenly left the outside track, cut obliquely across several parallel rows of tracks before she could control it, and

nd drew a gun from u

muttered joyously, and sank