" "And I
suppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'd have put out too?" "I
reckon," said Patterson simply.
Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,
to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, and
seemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confided his
sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the whiskey
and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties of their
delicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keys of the shop
to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was still thinking of
it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed, and he was fetching
a fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was at times obscured by
flying clouds, the avant-couriers of the regular evening shower. He
was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly to his feet again.
"Who's there?" he demanded sharply.
"Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of
the wind in the palisades of the corral.
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