Circumstances were such that a simple business transaction was to Dyke almost culpable, a degradation, a thing to be concealed.
"Borrowing money of S.Behrman," commented Annixter, "mortgaging your little homestead to the railroad, putting your neck in the halter.

Poor fool! The pity of it.

Good Lord, your hops must pay you big, now, old man." Annixter lunched at the Yosemite Hotel, and then later on, toward the middle of the afternoon, rode out of the town at a canter by the way of the Upper Road that paralleled the railroad tracks and that ran diametrically straight between Bonneville and Guadalajara.

About half-way between the two places he overtook Father Sarria trudging back to San Juan, his long cassock powdered with dust.

He had a wicker crate in one hand, and in the other, in a small square valise, the materials for the Holy Sacrament.