“Heard about Hermy bein’ married, Bud?” he enquired.

“Married?  You’re a liar!  Hermy married?  It’s not so!”

“‘S right!” nodded Soapy.  “She’s married th’ millionaire guy as got shot—­you know—­got shot in that wood—­you’ll remember, Bud!”

M’Ginnis sank into a chair and fell to biting his nails, staring blindly before him.

“Is—­this—­straight goods?” he enquired thickly, without altering his gaze.

“Sure!  Y’ see, she nursed him through his sickness, Bud—­kind of did the piller-smoothin’ an’ brow-strokin’ act.  Oh, I guess she comforted him quite some.”

M’Ginnis stared before him, worrying his nails with sharp white teeth.

“Ravenslee’s a well man again, I hear, an’ they’re honeymoonin’ at his place on the Hudson—­devotion ain’t the word, Bud!  ’S funny,” said Soapy, “but th’ bullet as downed this guy drove Hermy into his arms.  ’S funny, ain’t it, Bud?”

With a hoarse, inarticulate cry that was scarcely human, M’Ginnis sprang from his chair, his quivering fists up-flung.  For a moment he stood thus, striving vainly for utterance, then wrenched loose his neckerchief, while Soapy methodically lighted a new cigarette from the butt of its predecessor.

“Easy, Bud, easy!” he remonstrated gently, when M’Ginnis’s torrent of frenzied threats and curses had died down somewhat.  “If you go on that way, you’ll go off—­in a fit or something an’ I shouldn’t like t’ see ye die—­that way!”

“Up the river, is he?” panted M’Ginnis.

“’S right, Bud, up the river in his big house—­with her.  I—­”

“Is he, by—­”

“A dandy place f’ honeymoonin’, Bud!”

“Loan me your gun, Soapy.  I’ll get him, by God! if I have t’ shoot him in her arms—­loan me y’r gun!”

“I guess not, Bud, no, I guess not.  I’d feel kind o’ lonesome without th’ feel of it.  Ask Heine; he’ll loan you his; it’s gettin’ t’ be quite a habit with him, ain’t it, Heine?”

M’Ginnis sat awhile glaring down at his clutching right hand, then he rose, opened his desk, and took thence a heavy revolver, and slipped it inside his coat.

“You’re comin’ with me, Heine,” said he, “I’ll want you.”

“Sure thing, Bud,” nodded Heine, chewing his cigar.  “But what about lettin’ Soapy tag along too.”

“Soapy,” said M’Ginnis, striding to the door, “Soapy can go t’ hell right now.”

“Why then, Bud,” drawled Soapy, “I’ll sure meet you—­later.  S’long.”

Left alone, Soapy’s languor gave place to swift action.  In two strides, it seemed, he was in the saloon, had beckoned the quick-eyed bartender aside and put the question:  “Where’s the Kid, Jake?”

The bartender lifted an eyebrow and jerked a thumb upward.

“Shut-eye,” he nodded, and turned back to his multifarious duties.

Up a narrow stair sped Soapy and, opening one of the numerous doors, crossed to a truckle bed wherefrom a tousled head upreared itself.