“Very well.  I shall soon return.”  He departed at once, his impatience suddenly increased by the thought of seeking out McCoppet.

Beth watched him going.  A sickening sense of revulsion invaded all her nature.  And when her thoughts, like lawless rebels, stole guiltily to Van, she might almost have boxed her own tingling ears in sheer vexation.

She entered the house, summoned Elsa from her room, and had the luggage carried to their quarters.  Then she opened her case, removed some dainty finery, and vaguely wondered if the horseman would like her in old lavender.

Van, in the meantime, had been busy at the hay-yard known as Charlie’s.  Not only had Algy’s arm been broken, by the bully in the fight, but he had likewise been seriously mauled and beaten.  His head had been cut, he was hurt internally.  A doctor, immediately summoned by the horseman, had set the fractured member.  Algy had then been put to bed in a tent that was pitched in the yard where the horses, mules, cows, pyramids of merchandise, and teamsters were thicker than flies on molasses.

Gettysburg and Napoleon, quietly informed by Van of the latest turn of their fortune, were wholly unexcited by the news.  The attack on Algy, however, had acted potently upon them.  They started to get drunk and achieved half a load before Van could herd them back to camp.

Napoleon was not only partially submerged when Van effected his capture; he was also shaved.  Van looked him over critically.

“Nap,” he said, “what does this mean?—­you wasting money on your face?”

Napoleon drunk became a stutterer, who whistled between his discharges of seltzer.

“Wheresh that little g-g-g-(whistle) girl?” he answered, “—­lit-tle D-d-d-d-(whistle) Dutch one that looksh like—­looksh like—­quoth the r-r-r-r-(whistle) raven—­never more!”

Van divined that this description was intended to indicate Elsa.

“Gone back to China,” said he.  “That shave of yours is wasted on the desert air.”

Gettysburg, whose intellect was top heavy, had the singular habit, at a time like this, of removing his crockery eye and holding it firmly in his fist, to guard it from possible destruction.  He stared uncertainly at both his companions.

“China!” said he tragically.  “China?”

“Hold on, now, Gett,” admonished Van, steering his tall companion as a man might steer a ladder, “you don’t break out in the woman line again or there’s going to be some concentrated anarchy in camp.”

“No, Van, no—­now honest, no woman,” said Gettysburg in a confidential murmur.  “I had my woman eye took out the last time I went down to ’Frisco.”

“You’re a l-l-l-(whistle) liar!” ejaculated Napoleon.

“What!” Gettysburg fairly shrieked.

“Metaphorical speakin’—­meta phor-f-f-f-f-f-(whistle) phorical speakin’,” Napoleon hastened to explain.  “Metaphor-f-f-f-(whistle)-phorical means you don’t really m-m-m-m-(whistle) mean what you say—­means—­quoth the r-r-r-r-r-(whistle) raven—­never more!”