IN MARION'S SHOP
In Boney Street, Medicine Bend, stands an early-day row of one-story
buildings; they once made up a prosperous block, which has long
since fallen into the decay of paintless days. There is in Boney
Street a livery stable, a second-hand store, a laundry, a bakery, a
moribund grocery, and a bicycle shop, and at the time of this
story there was also Marion Sinclair's millinery shop; but the
better class of Medicine Bend business, such as the gambling
houses, saloons, pawnshops, restaurants, barber shops, and those
sensitive, clean-shaven, and alert establishments known as "gents'
stores," had deserted Boney Street for many years. Bats fly in the
dark of Boney Street while Front Street at the same hour is a blaze
of electricity and frontier hilarity. The millinery store stood
next to the corner of Fort Street. The lot lay in an "L," and at
the rear of the store the first owner had built a small connecting
cottage to live in. This faced on Fort Street, so that Marion had
her shop and living-rooms communicating, and yet apart. The store
building is still pointed out as the former shop of Marion Sinclair,
where George McCloud boarded when the Crawling Stone Line was built,
where Whispering Smith might often have been seen, where Sinclair
himself was last seen alive in Medicine Bend, where Dicksie
Dunning's horse dragged her senseless one wild mountain night, and
where, indeed, for a time the affairs of the whole mountain division
seemed to tangle in very hard knots.
As to the millinery business, it was never, after Marion bought the
shop, more than moderately successful. The demand that existed in
Medicine Bend for red hats of the picture sort Marion declined to
recognize. For customers who sought these she turned out hats of
sombre coloring calculated to inspire gloom rather than revelry, and
she naturally failed to hold what might be termed the miscellaneous
business. But after Dicksie Dunning of the Stone Ranch, fresh from the
convent, rode into the shop, or if not into it nearly so, and, gliding
through the door, ordered a hat out of hand, Marion always had some
business. All Medicine Bend knew Dicksie Dunning, who dressed
stunningly, rode famously, and was so winningly democratic that half
the town never called her anything, at a distance, but Dicksie.
The first hat was a small affair but haughty. The materials were
unheard of in Marion's stock and had to be sent for. Marion's
arrangements with the jobbing houses always had a C. O. D. complexion;
the jobbers maintained that this saved book-keeping, and Marion, who
of course never knew any better, paid the double express charges like
a lamb. She acted, too, as banker for the other impecunious
tradespeople in the block, and as this included nearly all of them she
was often pressed for funds herself. McCloud undertook sometimes to
intervene and straighten out her millinery affairs. One evening he
went so far as to attempt an inventory of her stock and some schedule
of her accounts; but Marion, with the front-shop curtains closely
drawn and McCloud perspiring on a step-ladder, inspecting boxes of
feathers and asking stern questions, would look so pathetically sweet
and helpless when she tried to recall what things cost that McCloud
could not be angry with her; indeed, the pretty eyes behind the
patient spectacles would disarm any one. In the end he took inventory
on the basis of the retail prices, dividing it afterward by five, as
Marion estimated the average profit in the business at five hundred
per cent.--this being what the woman she bought out had told her.
How then, McCloud asked himself, could Marion be normally hard pressed
for money? He talked to her learnedly about fixed charges, but even
these seemed difficult to arrive at. There was no rent, because the
building belonged to the railroad company, and when the real-estate
and tax man came around and talked to McCloud about rent for the Boney
Street property, McCloud told him to chase himself. There was no
insurance, because no one would dream of insuring Marion's stock
boxes; there were no bills payable, because no travelling man would
advise a line of credit to an inexperienced and, what was worse, an
unpractical milliner. Marion did her own trimming, so there were no
salaries except to Katie Dancing. It puzzled McCloud to find the leak.
How could he know that Marion was keeping nearly all the block
supplied with funds? So McCloud continued to raise the price of his
table-board, and, though Marion insisted he was paying her too much,
held that he must be eating her out of house and home.
In her dining-room, which connected through a curtained door with the
shop, McCloud sat one day alone eating his dinner. Marion was in front
serving a customer. McCloud heard voices in the shop, but gave no heed
till a man walked through the curtained doorway and he saw Murray
Sinclair standing before him. The stormy interview with Callahan and
Blood at the Wickiup had taken place just a week before, and McCloud,
after what Sinclair had then threatened, though not prepared, felt as
he saw him that anything might occur. McCloud being in possession of
the little room, however, the initiative fell on Sinclair, who,
looking his best, snatched his hat from his head and bowed ironically.
"My mistake," he said blandly.
"Come right in," returned McCloud, not knowing whether Marion had a
possible hand in her husband's unexpected appearance. "Do you want to
see me?"
"I don't," smiled Sinclair; "and to be perfectly frank," he added with
studied consideration, "I wish to God I never had seen you.
Well--you've thrown me, McCloud."
"You've thrown yourself, haven't you, Murray?"
"From your point of view, of course. But, McCloud, this is a small
country for two points of view. Do you want to get out of it, or do
you want me to?"
"The country suits me, Sinclair."
"No man that has ever played me dirt can stay here while I stay."
Sinclair, with a hand on the portiere, was moving from the doorway
into the room. McCloud in a leisurely way rose, though with a slightly
flushed face, and at that juncture Marion ran into the room and spoke
abruptly. "Here is the silk, Mr. Sinclair," she exclaimed, handing to
him a package she had not finished wrapping. "I meant you to wait in
the other room."
"It was an accidental intrusion," returned Sinclair, maintaining his
irony. "I have apologized, and Mr. McCloud and I understand one
another better than ever."
"Please say to Miss Dunning," continued Marion, nervous and insistent,
"that the band for her riding-hat hasn't come yet, but it should be
here to-morrow."
As she spoke McCloud leaned across the table, resolved to take
advantage of the opening, if it cost him his life. "And by the way,
Mr. Sinclair, Miss Dunning wished me to say to you that the lovely bay
colt you sent her had sprung his shoulder badly, the hind shoulder, I
think, but they are doing everything possible for it and they think it
will make a great horse."
Sinclair's snort at the information was a marvel of indecision. Was he
being made fun of? Should he draw and end it? But Marion faced him
resolutely as he stood, and talking in the most business-like way she
backed him out of the room and to the shop door. Balked of his
opportunity, he retreated stubbornly but with the utmost politeness,
and left with a grin, lashing his tail, so to speak.
Coming back, Marion tried to hide her uneasiness under even tones to
McCloud. "I'm sorry he disturbed you. I was attending to a customer
and had to ask him to wait a moment."
"Don't apologize for having a customer."
"He lives over beyond the Stone Ranch, you know, and is taking some
things out for the Dunnings to-day. He likes an excuse to come in here
because it annoys me. Finish your dinner, Mr. McCloud."
"Thank you, I'm done."
"But you haven't eaten anything. Isn't your steak right?"
"It's fine, but that man--well, you know how I like him and how he
likes me. I'll content myself with digesting my temper."