Part 22 (2/2)

”Go! Go!” screamed Goree, his face turning purple. He stretched out both hands toward the mountaineer, his fingers hooked and shaking.

”Go, you ghoul! Even a Ch-Chinaman protects the g-graves of his ancestors--go!”

The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall. While he was climbing over the wheel Goree was collecting, with feverish celerity, the money that had fallen from his hand to the floor. As the vehicle slowly turned about, the sheep, with a coat of newly grown wool, was hurrying, in indecent haste, along the path to the court-house.

At three o'clock in the morning they brought him back to his office, shorn and unconscious. The sheriff, the sportive deputy, the county clerk, and the gay attorney carried him, the chalk-faced man ”from the valley” acting as escort.

”On the table,” said one of them, and they deposited him there among the litter of his unprofitable books and papers.

”Yance thinks a lot of a pair of deuces when he's liquored up,” sighed the sheriff reflectively.

”Too much,” said the gay attorney. ”A man has no business to play poker who drinks as much as he does. I wonder how much he dropped to-night.”

”Close to two hundred. What I wonder is whar he got it. Yance ain't had a cent fur over a month, I know.”

”Struck a client, maybe. Well, let's get home before daylight. He'll be all right when he wakes up, except for a sort of beehive about the cranium.”

The gang slipped away through the early morning twilight. The next eye to gaze upon the miserable Goree was the orb of day. He peered through the uncurtained window, first deluging the sleeper in a flood of faint gold, but soon pouring upon the mottled red of his flesh a searching, white, summer heat. Goree stirred, half unconsciously, among the table's debris, and turned his face from the window. His movement dislodged a heavy law book, which crashed upon the floor.

Opening his eyes, he saw, bending over him, a man in a black frock coat. Looking higher, he discovered a well-worn silk hat, and beneath it the kindly, smooth face of Colonel Abner Coltrane.

A little uncertain of the outcome, the colonel waited for the other to make some sign of recognition. Not in twenty years had male members of these two families faced each other in peace. Goree's eyelids puckered as he strained his blurred sight toward this visitor, and then he smiled serenely.

”Have you brought Stella and Lucy over to play?” he said calmly.

”Do you know me, Yancey?” asked Coltrane.

”Of course I do. You brought me a whip with a whistle in the end.”

So he had--twenty-four years ago; when Yancey's father was his best friend.

Goree's eyes wandered about the room. The colonel understood. ”Lie still, and I'll bring you some,” said he. There was a pump in the yard at the rear, and Goree closed his eyes, listening with rapture to the click of its handle, and the bubbling of the falling stream. Coltrane brought a pitcher of the cool water, and held it for him to drink.

Presently Goree sat up--a most forlorn object, his summer suit of flax soiled and crumpled, his discreditable head tousled and unsteady. He tried to wave one of his hands toward the colonel.

”Ex-excuse--everything, will you?” he said. ”I must have drunk too much whiskey last night, and gone to bed on the table.” His brows knitted into a puzzled frown.

”Out with the boys awhile?” asked Coltrane kindly.

”No, I went nowhere. I haven't had a dollar to spend in the last two months. Struck the demijohn too often, I reckon, as usual.”

Colonel Coltrane touched him on the shoulder.

”A little while ago, Yancey,” he began, ”you asked me if I had brought Stella and Lucy over to play. You weren't quite awake then, and must have been dreaming you were a boy again. You are awake now, and I want you to listen to me. I have come from Stella and Lucy to their old playmate, and to my old friend's son. They know that I am going to bring you home with me, and you will find them as ready with a welcome as they were in the old days. I want you to come to my house and stay until you are yourself again, and as much longer as you will.

We heard of your being down in the world, and in the midst of temptation, and we agreed that you should come over and play at our house once more. Will you come, my boy? Will you drop our old family trouble and come with me?”

”Trouble!” said Goree, opening his eyes wide. ”There was never any trouble between us that I know of. I'm sure we've always been the best friends. But, good Lord, Colonel, how could I go to your home as I am--a drunken wretch, a miserable, degraded spendthrift and gambler--”

He lurched from the table into his armchair, and began to weep maudlin tears, mingled with genuine drops of remorse and shame. Coltrane talked to him persistently and reasonably, reminding him of the simple mountain pleasures of which he had once been so fond, and insisting upon the genuineness of the invitation.

Finally he landed Goree by telling him he was counting upon his help in the engineering and transportation of a large amount of felled timber from a high mountain-side to a waterway. He knew that Goree had once invented a device for this purpose--a series of slides and chutes upon which he had justly prided himself. In an instant the poor fellow, delighted at the idea of his being of use to any one, had paper spread upon the table, and was drawing rapid but pitifully shaky lines in demonstration of what he could and would do.

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