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Updated: June 18, 2025
He was a big, bluff, hearty man, florid face, loud of voice, a free and easy manner, and he was dressed for the occasion in yachting clothes of unmistakable newness. He eyed the Flyaway with an assumption of nautical wisdom and experience. "That's a good-looking boat, Captain Coombs," he said, in tones that could be heard far away. "She's all right; just what I want.
Might hav' worked too if I had n't been on the job, an' posted. Damn nice-lookin' girl yer picked up " "Drop that, Coombs!" I interrupted sharply, leaning forward and staring him in the eyes. "Let loose all you care to about me, but cut out the woman!" "Oh, too nice, hey!" "Yes, too nice for you to befoul even with your tongue.
"If I ever made any such claim as that, Coombs, it was merely to assure our admittance. You were not overly-cordial, you know, and I did n't propose having the lady walk back to town. It's different this morning, and I am going to be just as frank with you as you are with me. Is that square?" "I reckon," uneasily, not yet able to gauge my purpose, and feeling his bluff a failure.
We retired early, Harry and I, to sleep in the same room, with the rusty stove-pipe running through it; and we rose, I think, at four o'clock; while an hour later the feet of the big plow-oxen were trampling the rich loam where the frost had mellowed the fall back-setting. We worked until nine that night, and I had words with Coombs when he gave me directions about plowing.
I was scarcely sure this last was not a vision of my half-mad brain, but a fourth match revealed it all above the murdered Coombs, hidden beneath blankets, was the body of the strange man shot in the upper room. My God! the place was a charnel house! a spot accursed! I crept back from that ghastly scene of death as though invisible hands gripped my throat.
Bernard followed instantly, evidently afraid to be left in the dark. I followed with the grips, trailing up the stairs, having seen nothing of Coombs in the front room. In the upper hall our guide threw open two doors, going into the rooms and lighting lamps, thus giving glimpses of the interiors. The one in the corner was the larger, and better furnished.
Now, though Martin Lorimer sometimes gave way to outbreaks of indignation, he was fond of impressing the fact on me that if forced into a quarrel one should take the first steps deliberately. Also, even then I remembered that Coombs' homestead lay almost as near Elktail, and a happy thought struck me.
Coombs shut the door leading to the back of the house, and sat down facing me, his big hands on his knees. His effort to look pleasant only made him appear uglier than usual. "Wal, go on!" he said gruffly. I crossed my legs comfortably, and leaned back in the chair, quite conscious of thus adding to his irritation.
In manuscript are a fine song, "Free as the Tossing Sea," and a well-devised trio. A successful writer of songs is C. Whitney Coombs. He was born in Maine, in 1864, and went abroad at the age of fourteen. He studied the piano with Speidel, and composition with Seiffritz, in Stuttgart, for five years, and pursued his studies later in Dresden under Draessecke, Janssen, and John.
"Or I might relate about a cowboy tournament that's held over in the flat green bottom of Parker's arroya; an' how Jack Coombs throws a rope an' fastens at one hundred an' four foot, while Waco Simpson rides at the herd of cattle one hundred foot away, ropes, throws an' ties down a partic'lar steer, frees his lariat an' is back with the jedges ag'in in forty-eight seconds.
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