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"You oughtn't to have done that, Buck," Gordon told him impotently; "you ought never to have done a thing like that. Why, just see...." Gordon Makimmon's voice was tremulous, his brain blurred from shock. "You went and killed that off horse, and a man never hitched a better. There's the mail, too; however it'll get to Greenstream on contract to-night I don't know.
Gordon Makimmon's five dollars vanished in as many minutes. Oppressed by consuming anxiety he could scarcely breathe in the close, stale air. Em gambled with an affectation of careless indifference; she asked in an off-hand manner for cards; paid her losses with a loud laugh. Jake invariably gave one rapid glance at his hand, and then threw it down upon the table without separating his discard.
Then, with a rigid countenance, he pursued the article to the end. When he had finished his gaze remained subconsciously fastened upon the paper, upon the advertisement of a man who paid for and removed the bodies of dead animals. Gordon Makimmon's lips formed, barely audibly, a name; he whispered, "Valentine Simmons." At last the storekeeper had utterly ruined him.
The necklace slipped coldly through Gordon Makimmon's hand; it reminded him of a small, pearly snake with a diamond head; it increasingly reminded him of Meta Beggs. She loved jewelry. If she had kissed him for a pair of silk stockings "I think I'll take it," he decided slowly; "I don't know if I've got her right here in my pants."
He vaguely felt in the other's isolation the wreckage of an old catastrophe, a loneliness not unlike his, Gordon Makimmon's, who had killed his wife and their child. "The Nickles," the priest pronounced, sudden and harsh, "are worthless, woman and man. They would be bad if they were better; as it is they are only a drunken charge on charity and the church.
High above, the veil of light was still rosy, but it was dusk about Gordon Makimmon's dwelling. Lettice, in white, with a dark shawl drawn about her shoulders, was standing on the porch. She spoke in a strain of querulous sweetness: "Gordon, you've been the longest while. Mrs. Caley says your supper's all spoiled. You know she likes to get the table cleared right early in the evening." "Is Mrs.
The clerk approached, vigorously brushing the counters with a turkey wing. Gordon Makimmon's gaze concentrated on the storekeeper. "You're almost an old man," he said, in a slow, unnatural voice; "you have been robbing men and women of their homes for a great many years, and you are still alive. It's surprising that some one has not killed you."
The metal buckle which held the strap of his waistcoat caught the sun and reflected it into Gordon's eyes. "How many gross pink celluloid rattles?" the storekeeper demanded of the clerk. Gordon Makimmon's hand crept toward his pocket ... then he remembered he had lost that which he sought ... on the side of Cheap Mountain.
A slow smile crossed Gordon Makimmon's features as he realized what a pleasant conversation he would have with Simmons at the latter's expense. He had never conceived the possibility of getting the astute storekeeper into such a satisfactory, retaliatory position. He would extract the last penny of profit and enjoyment from the other's surprise.
The anger had evaporated from Gordon Makimmon's parched being: the storekeeper, he recognized, was sharper than all the rest of the County combined; even now the raddled old man was more acute than the young and active intelligences. He nodded, and would have passed on, but the storekeeper, with a ponderous furred glove, halted him.
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