Part 16 (1/2)

About a small stove loafed some eight or ten men and several ”hound-dogs.” The shoulders of these men slouched; their hands were chapped and coa.r.s.e; their clothes muddied, but when they walked it was with something of the catamount's softness, and their eyes were alert.

Behind the counter stood a man of fifty. I knew, without waiting for Weighborne's greeting, that this must be Garvin. There was something p.r.o.nounced yet hard to define which gave him the outstanding prominence of a master among minions.

He was a large man and inclined to stoutness. His hair and moustache were sandy and his florid face was marked with a purplish tracery of veins in which the blood appeared to bank and stand currentless. His neck was grossly heavy and bovine, but his forehead was broad and his eyes disarmingly frank and blue. His mouth, too, fell into the kindly lines of a perpetual smile.

His clothing was rough and his neck collarless, but one forgot this and noted only the suavity of his bearing and the ingratiating quality of his voice. Such was the man who should have gone long ago to death or imprisonment for the orders he had issued to his a.s.sa.s.sins.

”Judge Garvin,” said my companion, ”my name's Weighborne. I met you once in the court-house. You probably don't remember me.”

The gigantic reprobate smiled affably.

”Sure, I remember you,” he affirmed. ”I mighty seldom forget a man.” He came out from his place of office behind the counter and proffered his hand. It was not, like those of his henchmen, a calloused hand.

I had leisure to glance about the faces of the group as this colloquy occurred. They had been stolidly silent, gazing at us with unconcealed curiosity. When Weighborne introduced himself there was no overt display of interest, and yet unless I was allowing my imagination to run away with me I sensed from that moment forward that the lazy indolence of the atmosphere was electrified. The men lounged about in unchanged att.i.tudes and from time to time spat on the hot stove, yet each of them was carefully appraising us.

”I reckon you gentlemen came up to look over this here coal and timber project?” Garvin's voice seemed to hold only a politely simulated interest in our affairs.

Weighborne nodded.

”Do you think, Judge, as a man in good position to gauge the sentiment of the people, that we shall have their sympathy in our efforts?”

I studied Garvin's face closely, but if there was a spark of interest in his eyes, my eyes could not detect it. He smiled noncommittally and shook his head.

”Well, now, as to that,” he replied judicially, ”I couldn't hardly say.”

”We want to develop the coal and timber interests of the section,”

summarized Weighborne briefly. ”It will mean railroad facilities, better schools and fuller enforcement of the law.”

Garvin nodded in a fas.h.i.+on of reserved approval. There was no betrayed hint of his perfect understanding that it meant other things as well: an end of ”Garvinism,” a period to his baronial powers; the imminent danger which lurked for him in courts no longer afraid to try, and witnesses no longer terrified into perjury.

”That sounds purty promisin',” he agreed. ”It sounds purty good.”

”Then why would the people not cooperate?”

Garvin gave the question deliberate consideration.

”Well, now,” he finally said, ”that ain't such an easy question to answer just right off. The people hereabouts have been livin' purty much the same way fer nigh onto a hundred years. They're satisfied.”

”Are they satisfied with a reign of terror?” Weighborne was treading the thin ice of local conditions. I fancied he was trying to force Garvin into committing himself, but it was a dangerous experiment.

”What's anybody terrified about?” inquired the Judge with entire blindness.

Weighborne, totally checkmated by this childlike query, changed ground and laughed.

”Oh, we hear a good deal of talk down below,” he explained, ”about the shot from the laurel and all that sort of thing.”

Judge Garvin laughed heartily.

”Oh, pshaw!” he exclaimed in high good-humor. ”There ain't nothin' in all that. Them newspapers down below's jest obliged to have somethin' to talk about. We're all neighbors up here. We're simple sort of folks.