looked
and looked and looked--like a crazy woman; then her and Bud went off
together to hunt in the woods. They just tuck hold of each other's hands
like----"

"That ain't nothin'," Homer Tibbs broke in. "You'd ort to've saw old Miz
Hathaway, that widder woman next door to us, when she heard it. He had
helped her to git her pension; and she tuck on worse 'n' anything I ever
hear--lot worse 'n' when Hathaway died."

"I reckon there ain't many crazier than them two Bowlders, father and
son," said the postmaster, wiping the drops from his beard as he set his
glass on the bar. "They rid into town like a couple of wild Indians, the
old man beatin' that gray mare o' theirn till she was one big welt, and
he ain't natcherly no cruel man, either. I reckon Lige Willetts better
keep out of Hartley's way."

"I keep out of no man's way," cried a voice behind him. Turning, they
saw Lige standing on the threshold of the door that led to the street.
In his hand he held the bridle of the horse he had ridden across the
sidewalk, and that now stood panting, with lowered head, half through
the doorway, beside his master. Lige was hatless, splashed with mud
from head to foot; his jaw was set, his teeth ground together; his eyes
burned under red lids, and his hair lay tossed and damp on his brow. "I
keep out of no man's way," he repeated, hoarsely.

"I heard you, Mr. Tibbs, but I've got too much to do, while you loaf
and gas and drink over Lum Landis's bar--I've got other business than
keeping out of Hartley Bowlder's way. I'm looking for John Harkless. He
was the best man we had in this ornery hole, and he was too good for us,
and so we've maybe let him get killed, and maybe I'm to blame. But I'm
going to find him, and if he's hurt--damn _me_! I'm going to have a hand
on the rope that lifts the men that did it, if I have to go to Rouen to
put it there! After that I'll answer for my fault, not before!"

He threw himself on his horse and was gone. Soon the room was emptied,
as the patrons of the bar returned to the search, and only Mr. Wilkerson
and the landlord remained, the bar being the professional office, so to
speak, of both.

Wilkerson had a chair in a corner, where he sat chanting a funeral march
in a sepulchral murmur, allowing a parenthetical _hic_ to punctuate the
dirge in place of the drum. Whenever a batch of newcomers entered,
he rose to drink with them; and, at such times, after pouring off his
liquor with a rich melanch