Rock sobered then.  “It ain’t any josh,” he said, with convincing earnestness.  “You got married, all right enough.  And if it’s as you say, Ford, I sure am sorry for it.  I don’t know the girl’s name.  I’d know her quick enough if I should see her, but I can’t tell you who she was.”

Ford swore, of course.  And Rock listened sympathetically until he was done.

“That’s the stuff; get it out of your system, Ford, and then you’ll feel better.  Then we can put our heads together and see if there isn’t some way to beat this combination.”

“Could you spot the preacher, do you reckon?” asked Ford more calmly.

“I could—­if he didn’t see us coming,” Rock admitted guardedly.  “Name of Sanderson, I believe.  I’ve seen him around Garbin.  He could tell—­he must have some record of it; but would he?”

“Don’t you know, even, why she came and glommed onto me like that?” Ford’s face was as anxious as his tone.

“Only what you told me, confidentially, in a corner afterwards,” said Rock regretfully.  “Maybe you told it straight, and maybe you didn’t; there’s no banking on a man’s imagination when he’s soused.  But the way you told it to me was this: 

“You said the girl told you that she was working for some queer old party—­an old lady with lots of dough; and she made her will and give her money all to some institution—­hospital or some darned thing, I forget just what, or else you didn’t say.  Only, if this girl would marry her son within a certain time, he could have the wad.  Seems the son was something of a high-roller, and the old lady knew he’d blow it in, if it was turned over to him without any ballast, like; and the girl was supposed to be the ballast, to hold him steady.  So the old lady, or else it was the girl, writes to this fellow, and he agrees to hook up with the lady and take the money and behave himself.  Near as I could make it out, the time was just about up before the girl took matters into her own hand, and come out on a hunt for this Frank Cameron.  How she happened to sink her rope on you instead, and take her turns before she found out her mistake, you’ll have to ask her—­if you ever see her again.

“But this much you told me—­and I think you got it straight.  The girl was willing to marry you—­or Frank Cameron—­so he could get what belonged to him.  She wasn’t going to do any more, though, and you told me”—­Rock’s manner became very impressive here—­“that you promised her, as a man and a gentleman, that you wouldn’t ever bother her, and that she was to travel her own trail, and she didn’t want the money.  She just wanted to dodge that fool will, seems like.  Strikes me I’d a let the fellow go plumb to Guinea, if I was in her place, but women get queer notions of duty, and the like of that, sometimes.  Looks to me like a fool thing for a woman to do, anyway.”

Though they talked a good while about it, that was all the real information which Ford could gain.  He would have to find the minister and persuade him to show the record of the marriage, and after that he would have to find the girl.