Mat became silent again. His head drooped slowly forward, and his body
followed it till he rested his elbows on the gun. Sitting in this
crouched-up position, he abstractedly began to amuse himself by
snapping the lock of the rifle. Zack, suspecting that the brandy he had
swallowed was beginning to stupefy him, determined, with characteristic
recklessness, to rouse him into talking at any hazard.
"What the devil is all this mystery about?" he cried boldly. "Ever
since you pulled out that feather-fan and tobacco-pouch at Blyth's--"
"Well, what of them?" interrupted Mat, looking up instantly with a
fierce, suspicious stare.
"Nothing particular," pursued Zack, undauntedly, "except that it's odd
you never brought them out before; and odder still that you should tell
Blyth, and never say a word here to me, about getting them for a
woman--"
"What of _her?"_ broke out Mat, rising to his feet with flushed face
and threatening eyes, and making the room ring again as he grounded his
rifle on the floor.
"Nothing but what a friend ought to say," replied Zack, feeling that,
in Mat's present condition, he had ventured a little too far. "I'm
sorry, for your sake, that she never lived to have the presents you
meant for her.
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