s gaze remained subconsciously fastened upon the paper, upon
the advertisement of a man who paid for and removed the bodies of dead
animals.

Gordon Makimmon's lips formed, barely audibly, a name; he whispered,
"Valentine Simmons."

At last the storekeeper had utterly ruined him. He raised the paper from
where it had fallen and read the article once more. It was a floridly and
violently written account of how a projected branch of the Tennessee and
Northern System through Greenstream valley, long striven for by solid and
public-spirited citizens of the County, had been prevented by the hidden
avarice of a well-known local figure, an ex-stage driver.

The latter, the account proceeded, with a foreknowledge of the projected
transportation, had secured for little or nothing an option on practically
all the desirable timber of the valley, and had held it at such a high
figure that the railroad had been forced to abandon the scheme.

"What Greenstream thus loses through blind gluttony cannot be enumerated
by a justly incensed pen. The loss to us, to our sons and daughters....
This secret and sinister schemer hid his purpose, it now appears, in a
cloak of seeming benevolence. We recall a feeling of doubt, which we
generously and wrongfully suppressed at the time, concerning the motives
of such ill-considered ..."

"Valentine Simmons," he repeated harshly. He controlled the _Bugle_ in
addition to countless other industries and interests of Greenstream. This
article could not have been printed without Simmons' cognizance, his
co-operation. It was the crown of his long and victorious struggle with
Gordon Makimmon. The storekeeper had sold him the options knowing that the
railroad was not coming to the valley--some inhibition had arisen in the
negotiations--he had destroyed him with Gordon's own blindness, credulity.
And he had walked like a rat into the trap.

The bitter irony of it rose in a wave of black mirth to his twisted lips;
he, Gordon Makimmon, was exposed as an avaricious schemer with the
prospects of Greenstream, with men's hopes, with their chances. While
Simmons, it was plainly intimated, had labored faithfully and in vain for
the people.

He rose and shook his clenched hands above his head. "If I had only shot
him!" he cried. "If I had only shot him at first!"

It was too late now: nothing could be gained by crushing the flickering
vitality from that aged, pinkish husk. It was, Gordon dimly realized, a
gre