Often I look about unconsciously for Nathan Spear.
It seems impossible that he is dead."
"He was 47, but he seemed so young," commented Alice. She rose hastily.
"You must be very careful, dear," she cautioned, with a swift anxiety,
"of the cold and wet--and of the hoodlums. They tell me there are many.
Every week one reads in the _Alta_ that So-and-So was killed at the
Eldorado or the Verandah. Never more than that. In my home in the East
they would call it murder. There would be a great commotion; the
assassin would be hanged."
"Ah, yes; but this is a new country," he said, a little lamely.
"Will there never be law in San Francisco?" Alice asked him,
passionately. "I have not forgotten--how my father died."
Benito's face went suddenly white. "Nor I," he said, with an odd
intensity; "there are several things ... that you may trust me ... to
remember."
"You mean," she queried in alarm, "McTurpin?"
Benito's mood changed. "There, my dear." He put an arm about her
shoulders soothingly. "Don't worry. I'll be careful; neither storm nor
bullets shall harm me. I will promise you that."
* * * * *
Early as it was in the day's calendar--for San Francisco had no knack of
rising with the sun--Benito found the town awake, intensely active when
he picked his way along the edge of those dangerous bogs that passed for
business streets.
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