United States or Saint Pierre and Miquelon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The sun was high next day when the door of Pat Bylow's abode was opened, and a man entered. The scene that met his eyes is better undescribed, but to him it gave no shock. He came expecting to see it. In his hand he carried a tin pail. There were men and women lying about the floor. He stepped over them toward a tall form in soiled black clothes and knelt beside it.
As they passed the fence where Blazing Star had been hitched, Hartigan stopped and stared. Charlie said: "It's all right, Mr. Hartigan, I took care of him. He is in the stable." Coming to Bylow's house, Jim passed the entrance and went on to the stable. With trembling hands he opened the door and hesitated. He half expected Blazing Star to spurn and disown him.
"Well, yes," said Jim, in some perplexity; "but it was this way " "Never mind the way of it," said Higginbotham emphatically. Then, turning to the others: "I don't see that we need go any further." "Hold on, hold on," said Deacon Blight; "I'd like to ask one or two questions. You admit being under the influence of liquor at Bylow's?" "Yes," was the reply.
It was a simple matter to bluff a simple old clergyman, but it was another thing altogether to mislead an alert young woman. Belle knew there was something wrong something more and different from what she had been told. "Is the doctor with him?" "No." "I will get the doctor and come at once." "No, I wouldn't; at least, not till morning." Bylow's manner roused Belle all the more to prompt action.
His fingers trembled as he rolled a cigarette. "Say, John," Lowe began nervously, "in case any rumour gets around that the Preacher and I were a little reckless at Bylow's, you can contradict it. At least there's nothing in it as far as I am concerned. I think the Preacher must have taken some before I arrived. He showed the effects, but not much." "Hm," said Higginbotham. "You got there late?"
He had just got in from a case near Fort Ryan and was eating a belated meal. Belle went straight to the point: "Dr. Carson, I want you to take me at once to Bylow's Corner." "Why?" "There's something wrong. Mr. Hartigan is in serious trouble. I don't believe that he has fallen from his horse as they say. I want to know the truth." Her face was pale, her mouth was set.
In a remote part of the valley some five miles back of Cedar Mountain was Bylow's Corner, a group of three or four houses near the road, the log cabins of homesteaders. These men had, indeed, few pleasures in life. Their highest notion of joy was a spree; and every month or two they would import a keg of liquor, generally of a quality unfit for human consumption.
Can you get a good buckboard?" "Why, yes, of course I can. Carson says I can have his double-harness buckboard any time, ponies and all." "Good! Just the thing. I want to go out to Bylow's Corner to make a call, and maybe farther, if we can manage. I'll be ready by the time you are here with the rig." She went to her desk and wrote a note to her father. Somehow, mother didn't seem to count.
And a solitary owl that gazed from the top of a post straight up in the sky was compared to an old-time Methodist woman with her eyes uplifted in prayer while the collection plate was shoved under her nose. Bylow's Corner was reached all too soon. As Jim was about to draw up Belle said: "Let's go on farther; we can take them in on the road back. Let's go as far as Lookout Mountain."
The doctor looked keenly at her a moment and then, comprehending, said: "All right, I will"; and in ten minutes the mudstained buckboard with a fresh horse in it was speeding over the foot of Cedar Mountain on the trail to Bylow's.
Word Of The Day