Claire said no more. She turned away and opened a box that lay upon the table. From it she took a lamp, filled the bowl with peanut oil--which is odorless--and lighted it. She laid out a bamboo opium pipe, a needle, a set of the simple, but ingenious scales, and then turned again as Doctor Scudder knocked and entered the room.
Late that afternoon, two other men drifted into Two Palms. One came from the north, and this was Deadoak Stevens. He tramped disconsolately into the hotel and sought out Piute Tomkins, with whom he was closeted for some time. The two men emerged from their talk with an air of hopelessness; Piute had chewed at his ragged mustache until it had become a wisp.
The other arrival was the Meteorite contractor, by name Patrick Hennesy. He greeted Piute jovially; a brawny, red-faced man, and registered for the night. Then he inquired for Doctor Scudder, and was directed to the latter's room. As he turned from the register, he was frowning.
"What's this?" he said, beckoning to Piute and pointing with one stubby finger to the register. "Who's this guy Mackintavers? He don't go by the front name o' Sandy, I suppose?"
Piute assented with a trace of surprise. Patrick Hennesy broke into a lurid oath and inquired as to the whereabouts of said Mackintavers. When informed that Sandy was then somewhere to northward, he doubled up one huge fist.
"What's bitin' you?" inquired Piute with interest. "Know him, do you?"
"Know him?" Hennesy glared for a minute, then relaxed. "Well, I used to know him--and I sure want to see if he comes back to-night! If he don't--then don't say nothin' about me, savvy? I'll connect with that cuss later."
Piute assented, not knowing just what to make of all this. He felt too hopeless over the report of Deadoak Stevens, however, to push his inquiries into the matter.
Bill Hobbs, in the interim, was working feverishly through the hot afternoon in his printing office across the street. He had already evolved some principles of type setting, and now he was alternately cursing and blessing the implements to his hand, as he set up a grotesque and fearful array of words.
Toward sunset he viewed his labors with a marvelling satisfaction. The late proprietor had left a front-page form already in shape to receive news articles, and Bill Hobbs hung over the stone with an admiring eye as he studied the news article which he had supplied in part.