tore; soon the rail would hardly afford room for another animal.
He passed the Presbyterian Church, Dr. Pelliter's drugstore and dwelling,
and approached his home. Seen from the road the long roof was variously
colored from various additions; there were regions of rusty tar-paper, of
tin with blistered remnants of dull red paint, of dark, irregular
shingling.

It was a dwelling weather-beaten and worn, the latest addition already
discolored by the elements, blended with the nondescript whole. It was
like himself, Gordon Makimmon recognized; in him, as in the house below,
things tedious or terrible had happened, the echoes of which lingered
within the old walls, within his brain.... Now it was good that winter was
coming, when they would lie through the long nights folded in snow, in
beneficent quietude.

There were some final details to complete in his papers. He took off his
overcoat, laid it upon the safe, and flung the _Bugle_ on the table, where
it fell half open and neglected. The names traced by his scratching pen
brought clearly before him the individuals designated: Elias Wellbogast
had a long, tangled grey beard and a gaze that peered anxiously through a
settling blindness. Thirty acres--eight dollars an acre. P. Ville was a
swarthy foreigner, called, in Greenstream, the Portugee; every crop he
planted grew as if by magic. Old Matthew Zane would endeavor to borrow
from Gordon the money with which to repurchase the option he had granted.

He worked steadily, while the rectangles of sunlight cast through the
windows on the floor shortened and shifted their place. He worked until
the figures swam before his eyes, when he laid aside the pen, and picked
up the _Bugle_, glancing carelessly over the first page.

His attention immediately concentrated on the headlines of the left-hand
column, his gaze had caught the words, "Tennessee and Northern."

"Goddy!" he exclaimed aloud; "they've got it in the _Bugle_, the railroad
coming and all."

He was glad that the information had been printed, it would materially
assist in the announcement and carrying out of his plan. He folded the
paper more compactly, leaned back in his chair to read ... Why!... Why,
damn it! they had it all wrong; they were entirely mistaken; they had
printed a deliberate--a deliberate--

He stopped reading to marshal his surprised and scattered faculties. Then,
with a rigid countenance, he pursued the article to the end. When he had
finished hi