"It isn't money that's
hard to get. I can tell you men that. What a man wants in his home town is
respect. He don't want to be looked on as a fool because he tries to do
something to rise in the world."
* * * * *
Steve walked boldly out of the bank and into Main Street. When he had got
out of the presence of the two men he was frightened. "Well, I've done it.
I've made a fool of myself," he muttered aloud. In the bank he had said
that Hugh McVey the telegraph operator was his man, that he had brought
the fellow to Bidwell. What a fool he had been. In his anxiety to impress
the two older men he had told a story, the falsehood of which could be
discovered in a few minutes. Why had he not kept his dignity and waited?
There had been no occasion for being so definite. He had gone too far, had
been carried away. To be sure he had told the two men not to go near the
telegraph operator, but that would no doubt but serve to arouse their
suspicions of the thinness of his story. They would talk the matter over
and start an investigation of their own. Then they would find out he
had lied. He imagined the two men as already engaged in a whispered
conversation regarding the probability of his tale. Like most shrewd men
he had an exalted notion regarding the shrewdness of others. He walked a
little away from the bank and then turned to look back.
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