Bret Harte - A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's, and Other Stories

She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper, seized a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his intention of having the company “make it good” to her with a new one. Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room, entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat collar from the stool that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself up to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket.

“Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?” he said.

She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a slight rise of color, returned, “Yes.”

“Well, Miss Mullins, I’ve got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it straight out afore this crowd. It’s in my rights to take ye aside and ask it–but that ain’t my style; I’m no detective. I needn’t ask it at all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked by others. Ye needn’t answer it ef ye don’t like; ye’ve got a friend over ther—Judge Thompson—who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest as any other man here is—as though ye’d packed your own jury. Well, the simple question I’ve got to ask ye is THIS: Did you signal to anybody from the coach when we passed Galloper’s an hour ago?”

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