The world was full of joshers--Jack knew half a dozen men capable of playing that trick, just to turn the joke.

For a few minutes he was optimistic, almost making himself believe that the man had not been shot, after all.

The fading effect of the wines he had drunk sent his mood swinging from the depths of panicky anguish over the horrible affair, to a senseless optimism that refused to see disaster when it stood by his side.
He tried again to decide where he should go from San Francisco.

He tried to remember all that he had ever heard about the various paradises for sportsmen, and he discovered that he could not remember anything except that they were all in the mountains, and that Tahoe was a big lake, and lots of people went there in the summer.

He crossed Tahoe off the list, because he did not want to land in some fashionable resort and bump into some one he knew.