ay so before those panic-mongers
outside who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker boy, and
ease your mind about the wife. We may have other things to think about
soon."

Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and slipped
away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife must have heard
the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if so, would be on her
way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be waiting for him--knowing, too,
that he had heard the news--in fear and trembling. For it was Barker's
custom to endow all those he cared for with his own sensitiveness, and
it was not like him to reflect that the woman who had so recklessly
speculated against his opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in her
defeat. In the fullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case she
had not yet left Boomville: "All right. Have heard news. Understand
perfectly. Don't worry. Come to me." Then he left the hotel by the
stable entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on
the veranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knew
commanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he determined to
wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. He knew that many
of the guests were aware of his wife's speculations with Van Loo, and
that he was her broker. He wished to spare her running the gauntlet
of their curious stares and comments as she drove up alone. As he was
climbing the slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on the
road below, but he knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at four
o'clock, and that his tired wife would not have availed herself of it at
that hour, particularly as she could not have yet received the fateful
news. He threw himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoach
disappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel.

He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks
of the red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to become
whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance. There was
nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust which eventually
revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a solitary
mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, would momentarily emerge and
be lost again. Then he suddenly heard his name called, and, looking up,
saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had halted a few paces from him between two
columns of the long-drawn aisle of pines.