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"Prentiss McMakin came to me that day," she was saying, "with an appeal I hardly know how to tell you." She broke off. "Go ahead, Lucy," says Colonel Tom's voice. "He was insulting," she said. "He had been drinking. He wanted me to to he appealed to me to run off with him. "I was furious NATURALLY." Her voice changed as she said it enough so you could feel how furious Miss Lucy could get.
I haven't seen her since." "Dave," says Colonel Tom, "did McMakin happen to mention to you, that day, just why he was in Chicago?" "I suppose so," says the doctor. "I don't know. Maybe not. That was twenty years ago. Why?" "Because," says Colonel Tom, very grim and quiet, "because your first thought as to his intention when he met you in the bar was MY idea also.
But I 'spec' Miss Lucy Buckner done he'p some in de settleMENT. Foh de day befoh de weddin' was gwine ter be, she ups an' she runs off wid a Yankee frien' of her brother, Kunnel Tom Buckner. An' I'se 'spec' Kunnel Tom an' Marse Prent McMakin would o' settle' HIM ef dey evah had o' cotched him dat dar David Ahmstrong!" "Who?" says I.
"If I had gone straight to work, everything might have come around all right even then. But I didn't. I had that what's-the-use feeling. And I stopped in at the Palmer House bar to get something to sort of pull me together. "While I was there, who should come up to the bar and order a drink but Prent McMakin." "Yes!" says Colonel Tom, as near excited as he ever got.
So she moved away from where any one was lible to trace her to, and took her mother's maiden name, which was Hampton. "Well," I says, "what ever become of 'em after they run off, George?" But George has told about all he knows. They went North, according to what everybody thinks, he says. Prent McMakin, he follered and hunted. And Col. Tom Buckner, he done the same.
Must of happened between the time that afternoon when Prentiss McMakin left the doctor and the time Colonel Tom went out to see his sister and found she had went. Must of happened somehow through Prent McMakin. We goes home with Colonel Tom that night. And the next day all three of us is on our way to Athens, Indiany, where I had seen Miss Lucy at.
Which her wedding to Prent McMakin was billed fur to come off about the first of November, jest a month away. "I don't know whether I ever told you or not," says the doctor, "but I was engaged to be married myself, Tom, when I went down to your place. That was what started all the trouble. "You know engagements are like vaccination sometimes they take, and sometimes they don't.
You know how determined all your people were that Lucy should marry McMakin, Tom. They had brought her up with the idea that she was going to, and, of course, she was bored with him for that reason. "We decided the best plan would be to slip away quietly and get married. We knew it would raise a row.
"But I don't exactly understand," says the doctor. "You say he had the idea of shooting me." "I don't understand everything myself," says Colonel Tom. "But I do understand that Prent McMakin must have played some sort of a two-faced game. He never said a word to me about having seen you. "Listen," he goes on. "When you and Lucy ran away it nearly killed our grandfather.
I could see that Colonel Tom believed in him, too. They was both sicking their intellects onto the job of figgering out how it was Lucy didn't know. Finally the doctor says very thoughtful: "Whatever became of Prentiss McMakin, Tom?" "Dead," says Colonel Tom, "quite a while ago." "H-m," says the doctor, still thinking hard. And then looks at Colonel Tom like they was an idea in his head.
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