The Passing of Mooney
office of the District Attorney; precisely as Mooney had directed in his will.
But there she had not carried out his directions in its exact details.
I would like to write into this record that it was Mooney, on his deathbed, who thought of the course that Maggie followed, but it would not be the truth. He thought only of the cynical jest that he endeavored to carry out in his death. It was Maggie who was thinking of some one else. What she did will presently appear.
I suppose it was about a week later when a man came into the horse tent, and walked up to me as though he were an old acquaintance:
“How do you do?” he said.
His greeting was so cordial, that, although I did not know him, I put out my hand to shake hands with him. But instead of grasping my hand as I expected, he took hold of it and turned it suddenly over so he could see the palm.
There, still visible, was the red discoloration from the burn when I had taken hold of the hot iron rod, on the night when we had climbed down from the tender into the cab of the locomotive, in our last holdup.
The man seemed surprised, as though at finding some confirmatory evidence of which he had been in doubt.
113
