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Updated: May 5, 2025
Gilmore took the butt of the half-smoked cigar from between his teeth, tossed it into the gutter, and pushing past Mr. Shrimplin entered the room. Colonel Harbison, a step or two in advance of his companion, led the way to the rear of the store. The colonel paused, and Gilmore gained a place at his elbow. "You are sure he's dead?" questioned the gambler.
Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape.
"Oh, my God!" gasped Shrimplin, and there flashed through his mind the horror of that other night. Custer slipped out of the cart. "Come on!" he cried. He was vaguely conscious that his father was not seizing the present opportunity to distinguish himself with any noticeable avidity.
Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr.
Twilight deepened; the snow fell softly, silently, until it became a ghostly mist that hid the town hid the very houses on opposite sides of the street, and through this flurry Bill shuffled with unerring instinct, dragging Mr. Shrimplin from lamp-post to lamp-post, until presently down the street a long row of lights blazed red in the swirling smother of white. Custer reëntered the house.
I guess there ain't no one in the town fitter to say they seen times than just me!" The light and comfort of his own pleasant kitchen had quite restored Mr. Shrimplin. "I may say I seen times!" he repeated significantly. "There's something doing in this here old town after all!
"Did he die!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin ironically. "Well, they usually die when I begin to throw lead!" He tugged fiercely at the ends of his drooping flaxen mustache and gazed into the wide and candid eyes of his son. "Like I should give you the particulars, Custer?" he inquired. Custer nodded eagerly, and Mr. Shrimplin cleared his throat.
Custer colored almost guiltily. Could he ever hope to attain to the grim standard his father had set for him? "I wasn't much older than him when I shot Murphy at Fort Worth," continued Mr. Shrimplin, "You've heard me tell about him, son old one-eye Murphy of Texarcana?" "He died, I suppose!" said. Mrs. Shrimplin, wringing out her dish-rag. "Dear knows! I wonder you ain't been hung long ago!"
Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!"
Shrimplin, with a little cackle of mirth. "He never even seen his youngest!" said Mrs. Montgomery, giving completely away to tears at this moving thought of the handy-man's deprivation. "I reckon he could even stand that," observed Mr. Shrimplin unfeelingly. "I bet he never knowed 'em apart." "Why he was just wrapped up in them and me, just wrapped up!" cried Mrs. Montgomery.
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