Part 52 (1/2)

His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed, hidden satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The customary daylight breakfast for the teamsters had been omitted on account of the Sabbath.

A thin curl of smoke was just beginning to rise straight up from the kitchen stovepipe. Bob, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around to the back porch, where a huge _olla_ hung always full of spring water.

He rounded the corner to run plump against Oldham, tilted back in a chair smoking the b.u.t.t of a cigar.

In his agitation of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual conversation. By an effort he smoothed out his manner and collected his thoughts.

”How are you, Mr. Oldham?” he greeted the older man; ”when did you get in?”

”About an hour ago,” replied Oldham. His spare figure in the gray business suit did not stir from its lazy posture, nor did the expression of his thin sardonic face change, but somehow, after swallowing his drink, Bob decided to revise his first intention of escaping to his room.

”An hour ago,” he repeated, when the import of the words finally filtered through his mental turmoil. ”You travelled up at night then?”

”Yes. It's getting hot on the plains.”

”Got in just before daylight, then?”

”Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to work my way through the cattle.”

”Where's your team?”

”I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you wouldn't mind.”

”Sure not,” said Bob.

The Company's stables were at the other end of the village. Oldham must have walked the length of the street. He had said it was before daylight; but the look of the man's eyes was quizzical and cold behind the gla.s.ses. Still, it was always quizzical and cold. Bob called himself a panicky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked for footprints in the dust of the street. While his brain was thus busy with swift conjecture and the weighing of probabilities, his tongue was making random conversation, and his vacant eye was taking in and reporting to his intelligence the most trivial things. Generally speaking, his intelligence did not catch the significance of what his eyes reported until after an appreciable interval. Thus he noted that Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short b.u.t.t. This unimportant fact meant nothing, until his belated mind told him that never before had he seen the man actually smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his lips, but he contented himself with merely chewing it or rolling it about. And this was very early, before breakfast.

”Never saw you smoke before,” he remarked abruptly, as this bubble of irrelevant thought came to the surface.

”No?” said Oldham, politely.

”It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate,” said Bob, his voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more took up its listening for the hubbub that must soon break.

As the moments went by, the suspense of this waiting became almost unbearable. A small portion of him kept up its semblance of conversation with Oldham; another small portion of him made minute and careful notes of trivial things; all the rest of him, body and soul, was listening, in the hope that soon, very soon, a scream would break the suspense. From time to time he felt that Oldham was looking at him queerly, and he rallied his faculties to the task of seeming natural.

”Aren't you feeling well?” asked the older man at last. ”You're mighty pale. You want to watch out where you drink water around some of these places.”

Bob came to with a snap.

”Didn't sleep well,” said he, once more himself.

”Well, that wouldn't trouble me,” yawned Oldham; ”if it hadn't been for cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this chair an hour ago. You said you couldn't smoke before breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't before breakfast for me, it's after supper; and I've smoked two just to keep awake.”

”Why keep awake?” asked Bob.

”When I pa.s.s away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat first.”

There, at last, it had come! A man down the street shouted. There followed a pounding at doors, and then the murmur of exclamations, questions and replies.

”It sounds like some excitement,” yawned Oldham, bringing his chair down with a thump. ”They haven't even rung the first bell yet; let's wander out and stretch our legs.”