"Well, Ben," said the latter pleasantly, "I'm going to Gayfield to

telegraph for another car."

"How soon can they get one up?" inquired Stull, inserting a large

cigar into his slitted mouth and lighting it.

"Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know. I don't care much,

either."

"We can go on to Saratoga by train," suggested Stull complacently.

"We can stay here, too."

"What for?"

Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice: "The fishing's good. I guess I'll try it." He continued to contemplate

the machine, but Stull's black eyes were turned on him intently.

"How about the races?" he asked. "Do we go or not?"

"Certainly."

"When?"

"When they send us a car to go in."

"Isn't the train good enough?"

"The fishing here is better."

Stull's pasty visage turned sourer: "Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this God-forsaken dump

because you'd rather go to Saratoga in a runabout than in a train?"

"I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while."

"For how long?"

"Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk it over and----"

"Ah," ejaculated Stull in disgust, "what the hell's the matter with

you? Is it that little skirt you was buzzing out here like you never

seen one before?"

"How did you guess, Ben?" returned Brandes with the almost

expressionless jocularity that characterised him at times.

"That little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed

mill-hand----"

"Funny, ain't it? But there's no telling what will catch the tired

business man, is there, Ben?"

"Well, what does catch him?" demanded Stull angrily. "What's the

answer?"

"I guess she's the answer, Ben."

"Ah, leave the kid alone----"

"I'm going to have the car sent up here. I'm going to take her out. Go

on to Saratoga if you want to. I'll meet you there----"

"When?"

"When I'm ready," replied Brandes evenly. But he smiled.

Stull looked at him, and his white face, soured by dyspepsia, became

sullen with wrath. At such times, too, his grammar suffered from

indigestion.

"Say, Eddie," he began, "can't no one learn you nothin' at all? How

many times would you have been better off if you'd listened to me?

Every time you throw me you hand yourself one. Now that you got a

little money again and a little backing, don't do anything like

that----"

"Like what?"

"Like chasin' dames! Don't act foolish like you done in Chicago last

summer! You wouldn't listen to me then, would you? And that Denver

business, too! Say, look at all the foolish things you done against

all I could say to save you--like backing that cowboy plug against

Battling Jensen!--Like taking that big hunk o' beef, Walstein, to San

Antonio, where Kid O'Rourke put him out in the first! And everybody's

laughing at you yet! Ah----" he exclaimed angrily, "somebody tell me

why I don't quit you, you big dill pickle! I wish someone would tell

me why I stand for you, because I don't know.... And look what you're

doing now; you got some money of your own and plenty of syndicate

money to put on the races and a big comish! You got a good theayter in

town with Morris Stein to back you and everything--and look what

you're doing!" he ended bitterly.




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