ck Bar. Not open or general comment, certainly. The border folk
were not loose of speech. But two young fellows whose social versatility
included membership in the Mesquite Club, on the one side, and a free and
easy acquaintance with habitues of the Maverick Bar on the other, sat over
against the wall behind a card-table and spoke in lowered tones. They
pretended to be interested in the usual movements of the place. Two or
three cowboys from Thompson's ranch were "spending" and pressing their
hospitality upon all and sundry. A group of soldiers from the post were
present, and Jesus Mendoza, a Mexican who had accumulated a competency by
corralling his inebriated fellow countrymen at election times, and knowing
far more about the ticket they voted than they could ever have learned,
was resting a spurred boot on the bar railing, and looking through dreamy
eyes and his own cloud of cigarette smoke at the front door. Mendoza
always created the impression of being interested in something that was
about to happen, or somebody who was about to appear--but never in his
immediate surroundings.

"It's too bad somebody couldn't have told him," Blanchard, of the Eagle
Pass bank, was saying to the other man behind the card-table. The
conversation had begun by each asking the other why he wasn't up at the
wedding.

"Yes," assented Dunwoodie, the other man. He was a young lawyer whose
father had recently died in Belfast, leaving him money enough to quench a
thirst which always flourished, but which never resulted in even partial
disqualification, either for business or pleasure. "Yes, but Harboro
is.... Say, Blanchard, did you ever know another chap like Harboro?"

"I can't say I know him very well."

"Of course--that's it. Nobody does. He won't let you."

"I don't see that, quite. I have an idea there just isn't much to know.
His size and good looks mislead you. He doesn't say much, probably because
he hasn't much to say. I've never thought of there being any mystery. His
behavior in this affair proves that there isn't much of the right kind of
stuff in him. He's had every chance. The railroad people pushed him right
along into a good thing, and the women across the river--the best of
them--were nice to him. I have an idea the--er--new Mrs. Harboro will
recall some of us to a realization of a truth which we're rather proud of
ignoring, down here on the river: I mean, that we've no business asking
people about their antecedents."