"Do you know her--this Mrs. Dubois?"
"In a way--as one person knows another in a small town"--he hesitated
delicately--"not socially at all. She was never in society."
The banker looked at Symes sidewise through a cloud of smoke and his
lips twitched suspiciously at the corners. He said merely:
"No?" and continued to stare at the pall-bearers clinging to the wheels
of the hearse while they waited outside the undertaking establishment
for Lutz to beat his way back with the plume.
"I'd like to have a look at this man Dubois, if it's possible," he said
suddenly.
"Why, yes," said Symes not too willingly. "They're going to the Hall now
to hold the services." He hated to be separated from Capital even for so
short a time, besides he had a hope that his "magnetic personality" and
personal explanations might go a long way toward softening any
criticisms he might make when he noted the discrepancies between Mudge's
statements and the actual conditions.
Symes had been quick to recognize this man's leadership and importance;
simultaneously his sanguine temperament had commenced to build upon the
banker's support--perhaps even to the extent of financing the rest of
the project.
The banker followed the morbid crowd up the steep stairs to the Hall and
seated himself on one of the squeaking folding chairs beside Mrs. Abe
Tutts and Mrs. Alva Jackson, who were holding hands and stifling sobs
which gave the impression that their hearts were breaking.
The ugly lodge room whose walls were decorated with the gaudy insignias
of the Order was filled to overflowing with the citizens of Crowheart,
whose attendance was prompted by every other reason than respect. But
this a stranger could not know, since the emotion which racked Mrs.
Percy Parrott's slender frame and reddened Mrs. Hank Terriberry's nose
seemed to spring from overwhelming grief at the loss of a good friend
and neighbor.
Mrs. Jackson's rose-geranium had blossomed just in the nick of time, and
Mrs. Parrott, who did beautiful work in paper flowers, had fashioned a
purple pillow which read "At Rest" and reposed conspicuously upon the
highly polished cover of a sample coffin. Nor could the stranger, who
found himself dividing attention with the casket, know that the
faltering tributes to the deceased taxed the young rector's ingenuity
and conscience to the utmost. Indeed, as he saw the evidences of esteem
and noted the tears of the grief-stricken ladies, he regretted the
impulse which had prompted him to go, for he could not conceive the
removal of the Dubois of his acquaintance being the occasion of either
private or public sorrow.
But even the sermons of young rectors must end, and at last Lutz, in the
tremulous, minor, crepe-trimmed voice and drooping attitude which made
the listeners feel that undertakers like poets are born, not made, urged
those who cared to do so to step forward and pass around to the right.
Yes, it was he; there was no doubt about that; the brutal, obstinate
face had altered very little in twenty years. Twenty years? It was all
of that since he had seen old "Ed" Dubois betting his gold-dust on an
Indian horse race--twenty years since young Dick Kincaid had floundered
through the drifts in a mountain pass to see how the Canuck saved flour
gold. Once more he was on the trail, scuffling rocks which rolled a mile
without a stop. Before him were the purple blotches which the violets
made and he could smell the blossoms of the thorn and service berry
bushes that looked like fragrant banks of snow. He felt again the
depression of the silence in the valley below--the silence in which he
heard, instead of barking dogs and laughing children, the beating of his
own heart. He never had forgotten the sight that met his eyes, and he
recalled it now with a vividness which made him shudder, and he heard
with startling clearness the childish voice of a half-naked, emaciated
boy saying without braggadocio or hysteria--
"I'm goin' to find him, m'sieu, and when I do I'll get him, _sure_!"
Twenty years is a long time to remember an injury, but not too long for
Indian blood. It was a good shot--the purple hole was exactly in the
centre of the low, corrugated forehead--it had been no boyish, idle
threat. His son had "got him, _sure_!" Neither had Dick Kincaid
forgotten his own answer--
"If you do, boy, and I find it out, I don't know as I'll give you away."
He had learned to save flour gold and he was known as Richard H. Kincaid
in the important middle west city where he had returned with his
fortune. Time and experience had cooled his blood, yet, deep down, his
heart always responded to the call of the old, primitive justice of the
mining camps--"An eye for an eye: a tooth for a tooth."
Kincaid became conscious that he was being eyed in curiosity and
impatience by the eager folk behind. He heard Mrs. Tutts's rasping
whisper as he moved along--
"She ain't shed a tear--not even gone into black. I'll bet she don't aim
to view the corp' at all!"
Kincaid followed Mrs. Tutts's disapproving gaze.
That was the suspect! That slim, young girl with her delicately cut
features hardened to meet the concentrated gaze of a procession of
staring, unfriendly eyes? Why, as he glanced about him, she looked the
only lady in the room!
Essie sat with the feeling that ice had formed about her heart, trying
to bear unflinchingly the curious or sneering looks of those she had
known well enough to call by their first names. It was torture for the
sensitive girl who saw in each cold eye the thought that she had killed
a man--killed a human being--for money!
A feeling of overwhelming pity surged over Kincaid as he looked at her,
a feeling so strong that when she raised her eyes and gazed squarely
into his he wondered if he had spoken aloud. They were blue and
beautiful, her eyes, as two mountain forget-me-nots, like two bruised
flowers, he thought, that had been hurt to death. He could remember
having seen only one other pair like them.
An impulse so strong, a resolve so sudden and violent that it sent the
blood in a crimson wave above his collar and over his face seized him,
and he whispered to himself as he moved toward the door--
"I'll see her through, by George! I'll stand by her till there's skating
in the place that don't commonly freeze!"