IX

Meta Beggs saw Gordon at the same moment; and, without observation on the

part of her escort, beckoned him to her. She said promptly:

"Mr. Makimmon, please take care of me while Buckley goes down by those

carriages, where we saw you a little while ago, and gets his share of the

refreshment there. I'm certain that dusty road made him as dry as

possible."

Buckley grinned; such frank feminine acknowledgment and solicitude for the

masculine palate was rare in Greenstream. "Why, no, Miss Beggs," he

rejoined; "I'm in good shape for a while yet. I got a flask under the seat

of the buggy--"

"I insist on your tending to it at once. I know just how it is with

men--they have got to have that little refreshment ... don't you call it

'life preserver'? I'll be right by the counter; if Mr. Makimmon will be so

kind--"

"Well," Buckley agreed, "a drink don't go bad any time; the road was kind

of dusty. If you insist, Miss Beggs."

"I do! I do!" He turned and left them, striding toward the lower level.

Then:

"The fool!" she exclaimed viciously; "my arm is all black and blue where

he pinched it. My skin is not like the hides on these mountain girls, it

tears and bruises dreadfully easy, it's so fine. Let's go back there," she

pointed to where, behind the platform and counter, a path was trampled

through brush higher than their heads. Gordon glanced swiftly in the

direction in which Buckley Simmons had vanished. "He won't be back," she

added contemptuously, "for a half hour. He'll stay down there and drink

rotten whiskey and sputter over rotten stories." Without further parley

she proceeded in the direction indicated; and, following her, Gordon

dismissed Buckley from his thoughts.

Meta Beggs wore a shirtwaist perforated like a sieve; through it he saw

flimsy lace, a faded blue ribband, her gleaming shoulders. In an obscure

turn of the path she stopped and faced him. "Just look," she proclaimed,

unfastening a bone button that held her cuff. She rolled her sleeve back

over her arm. High up, near the soft under-turning, were visible the

bluish prints of fingers. "You see," she added; "and there are

others ... where I can't show you."

"Buck's pretty vigorous with the girls," he admitted; "I once dropped him

down a spell for it."

He was fascinated by her naked, shapely arm; it was slender at the wrist,

and surprisingly round above, at a soft, brown shadow. He was seized by a

desire to touch it, and he held her pointed elbow while he examined the

bruises more minutely. "That's bad," he pronounced; "on that pretty skin,

too." He was confused by the close proximity of her bare flesh, the pulse

in his neck beat visibly.

For a moment she stood motionless; then, with her eyes half closed, sulky,

she drew away from him and rearranged her sleeve.

The brush ended on a slope where pine trees had covered the ground with a

glossy mat of bronzed needles; and his companion sank to a sitting

position with her back against a trunk. They were outside the influence of

the camp meeting, beyond its unnatural excitation. The pine trees were

black against the brilliant day; they might have been cast in iron, there

was no suggestion of growth in the dun covering below; it was as

seasonless where they sat as the sea; the air, faintly spiced and still,

seemed to have lain unchanged through countless ages.

Meta Beggs sat motionless, with a look of inexpressible boredom on her

pale countenance. Her hands, Gordon thought, were like folded buds of the

mountain magnolia.

She said, unexpectedly, "You're rich now, aren't you, one of the richest

men in the county?"

"Why I--I got some money; that is, my wife has."

She dismissed, with an impatient gesture, the distinction. "Money is

life," she continued, with a perceptible, envious longing, "it's freedom,

all the things worth having. It makes women--it's their leather boxes full

of rings and pins and necklaces, their dresses of all-over lace, their

silk and hand scalloped and embroidered underclothes; it's their

fascination and chance and power--"

"I would like to see you in some of those lace things," he returned.

"Well, get them for me," she answered hardily.

Utterly unprepared for this direct attack he was thoroughly disconcerted.

"Why, certainly!" he replied, laboriously polite, "the next time--I'll do

it!--when I'm in Stenton again I'll bring you a pair of silk stockings."

"Black," she said practically, "and size eight and a half. You will like

me in black silk stockings," she added enigmatically.

"I'll bet," he replied with enthusiasm. "I won't wait to go, but send for

them. You would make the dollars dance. You are different from--" he was

going to say Lettice, but, instinctively, he changed it to, "the women

around here. You've got an awful lot of ginger to you."

"I know what I want, and I'm not afraid to pay for it. Almost everybody

wants the same thing--plenty and pleasure, but they're afraid of the

price; they are afraid of it alive and when they will be dead. Women set

such a store on what they call their virtue, and men tend so much to the

opinion of others, that they don't get anywhere."

"Don't you set anything on your--your virtue?"

"I'd make it serve me; I wouldn't be a silly slave to it all my life. If I

can get things with it that's what I'm going to do."

Gordon Makimmon found these potent words from such a pleasing woman as

Meta Beggs. Any philosophy underlying them, any ruthless strength, escaped

him entirely. They appealed solely to him as "gay," highly suggestive.

They stirred his blood into warm, heady tides of feeling. He moved over

the smooth covering of pine needles, closer to her. But with an expression

of petulance she rose.

"I suppose we must look for Buckley," she observed. Gordon had completely

forgotten Buckley Simmons' presence at the camp meeting. The

school-teacher, swaying slimly, led the way over the path to the plateau.

They saw Buckley Simmons at once: he was talking in an excited, angry

manner to a small group of men. A gesture was made toward Gordon and his

companion; Buckley turned, and his face flushed darkly, Gordon, stood

still, Meta Beggs fell behind, as the former made his way toward them.

Buckley spoke loudly when he was still an appreciable distance away:

"You were mighty considerate about my dusty throat," he began with heavy

sarcasm; "I ought to have seen at the time that you had it made up between

you. This is the second time that you have broken in on me, Makimmon. I'm

not a boy any longer. You can't tread on me. It's going to stop ... now."

"There's nothing for you to get excited about, Buck. Miss Beggs and I took

a little stroll while you were away."

"A 'little stroll.'" Buckley produced a heavy gold watch, the highly

chased cover of which he snapped back. "Over half an hour," he proclaimed;

"you stayed too long this time."

Gordon was aware of a form at his back. He turned, and saw Tol'able.

"What's the trouble, Gord?" the latter asked. Two or three others were

compactly grouped behind him.

"Why, Buckley's hot because I walked with Miss Beggs while he took a

drink."

The men about Buckley Simmons closed up. "Don't let Gordon crowd you

down," they advised their principal; "put it up against him."

"Haven't you got enough at home," Buckley demanded, "without playing

around here?"

Anger swiftly rose to Gordon Makimmon's head. His hand fell and remained

close by his side. "Keep your tongue off my home," he commanded harshly,

"or you will get more than a horsewhipping."

"By God," Buckley articulated. His face changed from dark to pale, his

mouth opened, his eyes were staring. He fumbled desperately in his pocket.

Gordon's hand closed smoothly, instantly, about the handle of his

revolver. But, before he could level it, an arm shot out from behind him,

and a stone the size of two fists sped like a bullet, striking Buckley

Simmons where his hair and forehead joined. Gordon, in a species of

shocked curiosity and surprise, clearly saw the stone hit the other. There

was a sound like that made by a heel breaking a scum of ice on a frozen

road.

Buckley said, "Ah," half turned, and dropped like a piece of carpet.

The belligerent attitude instantly evaporated from the group behind the

stricken man. "Gracious," some one muttered foolishly. They all joined in

a stooping circle about the prostrate figure. It was seen immediately that

the skull was broken--a white splinter of bone stood up from a matted

surface of blood and hair and dirt. Buckley's eyelids winked continuously

and with great rapidity.

A mingled concern and deep relief swept through Gordon Makimmon. He knew

that, had the stone not been thrown, he would have killed Buckley Simmons.

He wondered if Tol'able had done him that act of loyalty. It had,

probably, fatally wounded its object. He turned with a swift, silent look

of inquiry to Tol'able. The other, unmoved, dexterously shifted a mouthful

of tobacco. "Whoever did that," he observed, "could sure throw a rock."

A crowd gathered swiftly, cautious and murmuring. Simmons was lifted on a

horse blanket to the flooring by the counter. There was an outcry for a

doctor, but none was present, and it was agreed that the wounded man must

be hurried into Greenstream. "He won't get there alive," it was freely

predicted; "the top of his head is crumbled right off."

X

Gordon found Meta Beggs on the outskirt of the throng; she was pale but

otherwise unshaken. "I was sure you were going to shoot Buckley," she told

him.

"So was I," he returned grimly.

"Will he die?"

"It looks bad--his head's cracked. You didn't see anybody throw that

stone!" His voice had more the accent of a command than an inquiry.

"I really didn't; the men were standing so closely ... nobody saw."

"That's good. You'll drive home with me, for certain."

"I'm glad you didn't kill him," she confided to Gordon in the buggy. She

was sitting very close to him. "It would have--upset things."

"I don't believe you were a scrap frightened," he asserted admiringly.

"I wasn't. I thought how foolish you would be to spoil everything for

yourself."

"I would have gone into the mountains," he explained; "a hundred men would

have kept the law off me. I was a year and a half there, when--when I was

younger," he ended lamely.

"I like that," she replied, "I understand it. I've wanted to murder; but

it would have been silly, I would have had to pay too dearly for a passing

rage." There was a menace in her even voice, a cold echo like that from a

closed, empty room, that oppressed Gordon unpleasantly.

"I guess you're not as dangerous as that," he responded, more lightly. He

wondered, unable to decide, if she were consciously pressing her body

against him, or if it were merely the jolting of the buggy? They were

passing through the valley that led into Greenstream; the sun was lowering

behind them, the shadows creeping out. They dropped from the rough, minor

forms into the bigger sweep--it was like a great, green bed half filled

with a gold flood. Gordon's horse walked, and, in their slow progress, the

stream of light flowing between the ranges changed to a stream of shadow.

A miraculous pink rose opened in the east and scattered its glowing petals

across the sky. The buggy wound, like an infinitesimal toy, over the

darkening road.

He passed his dwelling, a long, irregular roof against the veiled surface

of the stream; a light shone from the kitchen window. The streets of the

village, folded in warm dusk, were empty; the white columns of the

Courthouse glimmered behind the shafts of the trees on the lawn. Supper

was in progress at Peterman's hotel; as Gordon and Meta Beggs left the

buggy they heard the rattle of dishes within. She walked a few steps, then

stopped, was about to speak, but she saw that Gordon had followed her, and

turned and led the way to the steps giving to the gallery above.

Gordon Makimmon followed her without reason, without plan, almost

subconsciously. He walked close behind her to where she opened the door to

her room: it was grey within, a dim curtain swelled faintly with an unfelt

air.

"Black," he repeated stupidly, "size eight and a half."

She stepped into the room, and faced him; her lips were parted over a

glimmer of teeth. He took her roughly in his arms, and she turned up her

face.

"For the stockings," she said, as he kissed her.