"I'll tell you what I've come up here for, Considine," he said.
"My name's Hugh Gordon, and I want to find out something about your
marriage with Peggy Donohoe."
"Well, if that's what you come for, Mister," said the veteran,
pulling a firestick out of the fire, and slowly lighting his pipe,
"if that's what you come for"--puff, puff, puff--"you've come on
a wild goose chase. I never knew no Peggy Donohoe in my life. My
wife"--puff--"was a small, dark woman, named Smith."
"I thought you told my brother that you married Peggy Donohoe."
"So I might have told him," assented the veteran. "Quite likely
I did, but I must ha' made a mistake. A man might easy make a
mistake over a thing like that. What odds is it to you who I married,
anyhow?"
"What odds? Why look here, Considine, it means that my old mother
will be turned out of her home. That's some odds to me, isn't it?"
"Yairs, that's right enough, Mister," said the courteous Considine;
"it's lots of odds to you, but what I ask you is--what odds is
it to me? Why should I go and saddle myself with a she-devil just
when I'm coming into a bit of money? I'd walk miles to do her a
bad turn."
"Well, if you want to do her a bad turn, come down and block her
getting Mr. Grant's estate."
"Yes, an' put her on to meself What next? I tell you, Mister,
straight, I wouldn't have that woman tied to me for all the money
in China. That English bloke said there was a big fortune for me
in England. Well, if I have to take Peggy Donohoe with it, it can
stay. I'll live here with the blacks and the buffalo shooters, and
I'll get my livin' for meself, same as I got it all my life; but
take on Peggy again I will not. Now, that's Domino--that's the dead
finish. I won't go with you, and I won't give you no information.
And I'm sorry too, 'cause you seem a good sort of a young feller--but
I won't do anything that'll mix me up with Peggy any more."
Hugh ground his teeth with mortification. Then he played his next
card.
"There's a man they call Flash Jack--do you know him?"
"Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't," said the sage in a surly tone.
"Well, he told me to ask you to help us. He said to tell you that
he particularly wanted you to give evidence if you can."
"Want'll be his master, then," snarled the old man.
"He said he would put the police on to a job about some cattle at
Cross-roads," said Hugh.