girls," he pronounced coolly; "but he'll be after them
again in a couple of weeks."

He gazed with level disdain into the tempest gathering
in Simmons' eyes above the dark, spotted
handkerchief. He paused, deliberately insolent,
challenging a rejoinder, until, none breaking the
strained silence, he swung about, and, at the horses'
heads, led them to their stabling at Peterman's Hotel.
He passed the unpainted, wooden front of the office
of the _Greenstream_Bugle_; the house of Senator
Themeny in its lindens on a spreading lawn; on the
opposite side the mellow brick face of the Courthouse
under towering poplars, and Valentine Simmons'
store.

Gordon stopped at the latter on his way home.
It was a long, shed-like structure with a false facade;
before it, elevated a man's height from the road,
was the broad platform where the mountain wagons
unloaded their merchandise; on the side facing the
Courthouse ran a wooden hitching rail. Inside, on
the left, Simmons' private office was shut in glass
from the main floor of the store; long counters led
back into a semi-obscurity, where a clerk was lighting
a row of swinging kerosene lamps.

"Chalk them up, Sampson," Gordon carelessly
told the clerk who wrapped up his purchases.
"How much are those?" he added, indicating a pair
of women's low white shoes.

[[34]]

p033 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p034w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p035

v?