The Professor's House
and paid four thousand dollars down for it. The
transaction made quite a stir here in Tarpin. I'm
not kicking. I made a good thing out of it. My
mules were busy three weeks packing the stuff out of
there on their backs, and I held the Dutchman up for
a fancy price. He had packing cases made at the
wagon shop and took 'em up to the mesa full of
straw and sawdust, and packed the curios out there.
I lost one of my mules, too.
Well, they were leading her down with a big box on
her, and right there where the trail runs so narrow
around a bump in the cliff above Black Canyon, she
lost her balance and fell clean to the bottom, her
load on her. Pretty near a thousand feet, I guess.
We never went down to hold a post-mortem, but
Fechtig paid for her like a gentleman."
I remember I sat down on the sofa in Hook's office because I couldn't stand up any longer, and the smell of the horse blankets began to make me deathly sick. In a minute I went over, like a girl in a novel. Hook pulled me out on the sidewalk and gave me some whisky out of his pocket flask.
When I felt better I asked him how long this German had been gone, and what he had done with the things.
"Oh, he cleared out three weeks ago. He didn't waste no time. He treated everybody well, though; nobody's sore at him. It's your partner they're turned against. Fechtig took the stuff right along You remember Jenny?
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