"If you please," she said. "To-day."

"But--the bank isn't open after three," he said in a species of panic.

"You can't be utterly unreasonable."

"It was open much later when we were wiring New York some time ago,"

she reminded him coldly. "I think you'll find it open to-night till nine."

"Well--perhaps I can arrange it, then," he said in desperation. "I'll get down there now and see what I can do."

He took his hat and, glad to escape a further inquisition, made remarkable haste from the house.

Trembling with excitement, quivering on the verge of half-discovered things, flashes of intuition, fragments of deduction, Beth waited an hour for developments.

Searle did not return. She had felt he would not. She was certain her money was gone.

At dusk a messenger boy arrived with the briefest note, in Bostwick's familiar hand.

"Sudden, urgent call to the claim. No time for business. Back as soon as possible. With love and faith, yours, SEARLE."

How she loathed his miserable lie!

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

ALGY'S COOKING AND BETH'S DESPAIR

Van and the new supply of provender arrived together at the tent where the partners made their temporary home. It was nearly dusk, the mellow end of a balmy day. Gettysburg, Napoleon, and Dave were all inside the canvas, filling the small hollow cube of air with a mighty reek from their pipes, and playing seven-up on a greasy box. The Chinese cook was away, much to Van's surprise.

"Gett," he said, throwing off his belt and revolver, "if Nap was to deal the cards on your tombstone, on the day of Gabriel's trump, I'll bet you'd break the crust and take a hand. What have you done with Algy?"

"He's went to git a job," said Gettysburg. "He called us all a lot of babies. I doggone near kicked him in the lung."

Outside, where a wagon had halted with Van's new purchases, the driver hauled out two respectable boxes and dropped them on the earth.

"What's that?" demanded Napoleon, leaping to his feet. "If it's pirates come to board us again----"

"Don't scare it away," Van interrupted warningly. "It's grub."

With one accord the three old cronies started for the door of the tent.

Van followed, prepared to get a dinner under way, since his system was woefully empty.

To the utter astonishment of all, a visitor was bustling up the hill.

It was Mrs. d.i.c.k.

"Where's Van?" she panted, while still a rod away. "Here, Van!" she exclaimed, the moment she clapped her eyes upon him, "you're just the one I want to see, and I'm an awful busy woman, but I've got to make a deal with you and the sooner it's over the better. So as long as Charlie Sing is cookin' our victuals already I just run up to fight it out, and we might as well begin the program tonight, so all you boys come down to dinner in just about half an hour."

The men were all at sea, even Napoleon, who had once sailed a near-briny river.

"Sit down," said Van, "and give the grounds a chance to settle. We can almost see daylight through what you said, but who, for instance, is Charlie Sing?"

"As if you didn't know!" Mrs. d.i.c.k responded warmly. "If you think I'm goin' to call that Chinaman Algy, or anything white, you're way off your ca-base! Algy! for a Chinaman! Not but what he's a good enough cook, and I like him as a friend of yours--and him almost makin' me cry with his tryin' to nurse you four old helpless galoots, but I draw the line at fancy names, and don't you forget it!"

The "four old galoots" looked at one another in bewilderment. Van led Mrs. d.i.c.k gently but firmly to a box of provisions and pushed her down upon it.

"Now take a breath," he said, "and listen. Do we understand you to say that Algy has gone to your boarding-house and taken a job as cook?"

"He has," said Mrs. d.i.c.k, "but I've named him Charlie."

"That'll turn his stomick," ventured Gettysburg gravely. "He was proud of 'Algy.'"

"He certainly must be desperate," added Van. "I don't quite savvy how it happened."

"Oh, you don't?" said little Mrs. d.i.c.k. "Well, I _do_. He come down there and says to me, says he, 'We're broke, Van and us,' he says, 'and I'll go to work and cook for you if you'll board all the family,' or words to that effect, says he, 'and give Van twenty dollars a month, salary,' he says, and I says I'll do it, quicker than scat. And that's all there is to say, and if Charlie wasn't a Chinaman I'd kiss him in the bargain!" With a quick, impatient gesture she made a daub at her eye and flecked away a jewel.

Van hauled at his collar, which was loose enough around his neck.

"Say, boys," he said, "think of Algy, being kissed in the bargain. I always thought he got his face at a bargain counter."

"That's all right, Bronson Van Buren!" answered Mrs. d.i.c.k indignantly, "but I never come that near to kissin' you!"

Van suddenly swooped down upon her, picked her up bodily, and kissed her on the cheek. Then he placed her again on the box.

"Why didn't you say what you wanted, earlier?" he said. "Now, don't talk back. I want you to harken intently. I'm perfectly willing that Algy should waste his sweetness on the desert air of your boarding-house, if it pleases you and him. I'm willing these old ring-tailed galoots should continue to eat his fascinating poisons, and I certainly hope he'll draw his monthly wage, but I'm going to be too busy to board in any one place, and Algy's salary would make a load I must certainly decline to carry."

Mrs. d.i.c.k looked at the horseman in utter disappointment.

"You won't come? Maybe you mean my house ain't good enough?"

Napoleon was somewhat excited by prospects of again beholding Elsa, of whose absence he was wholly unaware.

"We won't go, neither!" he declared. "Doggone you, Van, you know we won't go without the skipper, and you're shovin' us right out of heaven!"

Gettysburg added: "I don't want to say nuthin', but my stomach will sure be the seat of anarchy if it has to git cheated out of goin' down to Mrs. d.i.c.k's."

Van was about to reply to them all. He had paused to frame his answer artfully, eager as he was to foster the comfort of his three old partners, but wholly unwilling to accept from either Mrs. d.i.c.k or Algernon the slightest hint of aid.

"I admit that a man's reach should be above the other fellow's grasp, and all that," he started, "but here's the point----"

He was interrupted suddenly. A man, running breathlessly up the slope and waving his hat in frantic gestures, began to shout as he came.

"Mrs. d.i.c.k! Mrs. d.i.c.k!" he cried at the top of his voice. "Help!

help! You've got to come!"

Mrs. d.i.c.k leaped quickly to her feet to face the oncoming man. It was old Billy St.i.tts. He had come from Beth.

"Come on! Come on!" he cried as he neared the group, towards which he ceased to run, the better to catch his breath and yell. "There's h.e.l.l a-poppin' in the boarding-house! You've got to come!"