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Prominent among the business men who had revised their attitude on reform as the shadow of Seth Craddock approached Ascalon was Earl Gray, the druggist, one of the notables on Dora Conboy's waiting list. Druggist Gray was a man who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a moleskin vest without a coat.
Mrs. Conboy's exclamation appeared to voice the general belief of the crowd. Murmurs of disapproval began to rise.
The proprietor of the Elkhorn hotel appeared to be under a depression of spirits. He answered those who addressed him in short words, with manner withdrawn. Morgan noted that the diamond stud was gone out of the desert of Conboy's shirt bosom, and that he was belted with a pistol.
Morgan would keep the joints all shut till the drunks in this town dried up like dead snakes!" "You, and your ma!" Conboy grumbled, bearing on an old grievance, an old theme of servitude and discontent. Morgan recalled the gaunt anxiety of Mrs. Conboy's eyes, hollow of every emotion, as they seemed, but unrest and straining fear.
Conboy asked, hand stayed hesitantly to take the purse. "I've got an appointment with Judge Thayer to look at a piece of land in the morning," Morgan returned. "Well, keep out enough to buy a gun, two of 'em if you're a double-handed man," Conboy counseled. "I've got what I need," said Morgan, putting the purse in Conboy's hand.
He came to that conclusion with Morgan's evasion of his direct question. The interests of Peden and his kind were Conboy's interests. He stood like a housemaid with dustpan and broom to gather up the wreckage of the night. "When can I get breakfast?" Morgan inquired, turning suddenly, catching Conboy with his new resolution in his shifty, flickering eyes, reading him to the marrow of his bones.
"Are they hittin' anybody, or just shootin' for noise?" Stilwell asked. "Well, I know they took a crack at me when I went out of Conboy's to git my horse." Mrs. Stilwell and Violet, who had hastened out on Fred's excited arrival, exclaimed in concern at this, the mother going to her boy to feel him over as for wounds, standing by him a little while with arm around him. "Did you shoot back?"
After that Deolda went off in Conboy's motor as soon as her dishes were done and after supper there would be handsome Johnny Deutra. We were profoundly shocked. You may be sure village tongues were already busy after a few days of these goings on. "Deolda," my aunt said, sternly, "what are you going out with that old Conboy for?" "I'm going to marry him," Deolda answered. "You're what?"
He thought soberly now of getting his trunk over to Conboy's from the station and changing back into the garb of civilization before meeting that girl again, that wonderful girl, that remarkable woman who could play a tune on him to suit her caprice, he thought, as she would have fingered a violin.
Presently the man on Conboy's other hand, who had been trying with little result to draw him into a conversation, got up and made his way toward the bright front of the dance hall. Conboy touched Morgan's knee. "Come into the office, kind of like it happened, a little while after me," he said, speaking in low voice behind his hand.
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