gratitude for the honesty of her purpose. But it would have been better if they had let things work out to the appointed end last night.
What is plotted in the life scheme of a man will take place, Dunham believed with the deep conviction of a fatalistic heritage. "What is to be will be." He had heard his grandmother say it, in the wisdom of her accumulated experience, times without number.
Safeguards and precautions, and the friendly interference of men, or even young ladies with lovely soft chins and nice red hair, cannot divert the predestined perils in the days of a man. They had done their best, and here he was back in Pawnee Bend, as impotent against the stream of circumstance as he would have been against the ocean's tide.
MacKinnon advised him to duck behind the string of boarding-cars, and hide out in a ravine until he heard a train coming. A reasonable expectation of a long life was worth more than a meal. No, Bill said; that wasn't his day to hide out. What was to be would be, and he was going over to a restaurant.
Well, in that case, let him take the suitcase to the hotel, MacKinnon proposed. Somebody would carry it off if he left it at the station. And where did he want it sent, and whom did he want notified, in case things came to a bad ending for him before he got out of town.
"I'll be along for it in a little while," Dunham replied to his portentous questioning. "I'll take it over myself, Mr. MacKinnon—I couldn't begin to let you go carryin' my old traps around."
