Jack was in Denver, so Yik Kee and I went
to the barn with them. They looked the hides over carefully, and
conversed in low tones, Gil with a suppressed oath. Finally they thanked
us courteously and took their leave.
"Hump; no goodee," said Yik Kee, but he wouldn't say any more.
At five that evening, when we were at supper, a crowd of twenty-five or
thirty men rode up on horseback. Jack came out and met them, inviting
them in to take supper, in his generous, hospitable way. They wanted him
to go to Denver with them, there was to be a meeting there of importance
to ranchmen. The meeting would be at eight. They had brought with them
an extra horse for Jack. Mary looked around for Yik Kee to help her, but
he had mysteriously disappeared.
I faintly remembered seeing his white, horrified face peering around the
barn at the horses. I noted the visitors ate little--the food seemed to
choke them. Some of them watched Mary and the baby in a queer sort of
way. When Jack, as was his custom, kissed his wife and babies good-by,
one of the visitors, an oldish man, coughed huskily, and said: "Blest if
I kin stan' this.
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