"That ain't nothin'," Homer Tibbs broke in. "You'd ort to've saw old Miz
Hathaway, that widder woman next door to us, when she heard it. He had
helped her to git her pension; and she tuck on worse 'n' anything I ever
hear--lot worse 'n' when Hathaway died."
"I reckon there ain't many crazier than them two Bowlders, father and
son," said the postmaster, wiping the drops from his beard as he set his
glass on the bar. "They rid into town like a couple of wild Indians, the
old man beatin' that gray mare o' theirn till she was one big welt, and he
ain't natcherly no cruel man, either. I reckon Lige Willetts better keep
out of Hartley's way."
"I keep out of no man's way," cried a voice behind him. Turning, they saw
Lige standing on the threshold of the door that led to the street. In his
hand he held the bridle of the horse he had ridden across the sidewalk,
and that now stood panting, with lowered head, half through the doorway,
beside his master. Lige was hatless, splashed with mud from head to foot;
his jaw was set, his teeth ground together; his eyes burned under red
lids, and his hair lay tossed and damp on his brow. "I keep out of no
man's way," he repeated, hoarsely.
"I heard you, Mr. Tibbs, but I've got too much to do, while you loaf and
gas and drink over Lum Landis's bar--I've got other business than keeping
out of Hartley Bowlder's way. I'm looking for John Harkless. He was the
best man we had in this ornery hole, and he was too good for us, and so
we've maybe let him get killed, and maybe I'm to blame. But I'm going to
find him, and if he's hurt--damn me! I'm going to have a hand on the
rope that lifts the men that did it, if I have to go to Rouen to put it
there! After that I'll answer for my fault, not before!"
He threw himself on his horse and was gone. Soon the room was emptied, as
the patrons of the bar returned to the search, and only Mr. Wilkerson and
the landlord remained, the bar being the professional office, so to speak,
of both.
Wilkerson had a chair in a corner, where he sat chanting a funeral march
in a sepulchral murmur, allowing a parenthetical hic to punctuate the
dirge in place of the drum. Whenever a batch of newcomers entered, he rose
to drink with them; and, at such times, after pouring off his liquor with
a rich melancholy, shedding tears after every swallow, he would make an
exploring tour of the room on his way back to his corner, stopping to look
under each chair inquiringly and ejaculate: "Why, where kin he be!" Then,
shaking his head, he would observe sadly: "Fine young man, he was, too;
fine young man. Pore fellow! I reckon we hain't a-goin' to git him."