something like twenty-five hundred dollars. A long campaign would put me irretrievably in the hole; I'd get so far behind that a holocaust couldn't put me even. She can't expect that of me, yet girls are such idiots about devotion, and of course she doesn't know what a heavy task I'm facing. And there are the others—what will they do while I am out of the running? I cannot go to her and say, 'Please, may I have a year's vacation? I'll come back next September.' On the other hand, I shall surely neglect my business if she expects me to compete. What pleasure shall I get out of the seven millions if I lose her? I can't afford to take chances. That Duke won't have seven millions next September, it's true, but he'll have a prodigious argument against me, about the twenty-first or second."
Then a brilliant thought occurred to him which caused him to ring for a messenger-boy with such a show of impatience that Rawles stood aghast. The telegram which Monty wrote was as follows:
Swearengen Jones,
Butte, Montana
May I marry and turn all property over to wife, providing she will have me?
