Horne pointed to the office.
“Go in there, young fellow,” he said. “On the back of the back door is the key to my barn. Hitch up my horse and follow me. I’ll drive this race horse of Thompson’s. Take your time, young fellow,” he added, as Mauney ran toward the office. “You aren’t the doctor. Just drive down slow, mind.”
Later when Mauney had nervously succeeded in hitching up Doctor Horne’s horse and was driving quickly homeward he wondered why he had been asked to drive so slowly. The horse seemed in good condition and in the habit of running, so he made no effort to stop him. Suddenly, though, at the outskirts of the town, as they passed the last houses, the horse slowed down to an easy trot, a matter of habit, too, as Mauney humorously reflected. At length, he reached home, but saw nobody in the yard. Thompson’s horse was wandering slowly by the end of the drive shed, nibbling the short grass. Mauney got out and tied the doctor’s horse to the iron weight which he had taken from the buggy. For a moment he gazed toward the barn. There was the open stable door, the empty windows, the enlarging blue shadow of the building creeping toward the end of the manure heap, but no movement, save that of a white hen, picking in the straw that littered the ground. He slowly turned and entered the kitchen where, stretched upon the sofa, he discovered the woman, sobbing hysterically.
“How is he?” Mauney asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she managed to say, turning over on her face and biting her finger. “I went over to get Bill, but he’s in the back field. I guess you better get him, Maun. I—I can’t walk no further!”
On his way to the lane Mauney saw the doctor, in his shirt sleeves, coming across the barnyard toward the kitchen. He waited for him, reflecting that he had never seen the physician walk so slowly.
“Well, Mauney,” he said seriously, as he came up. “God knows this isn’t the kind of thing I like to do. I feel damned sorry for you.”
“Is he—is he dead, doctor?”
Horne slowly nodded his big, black head, while tears filled his big, black eyes.
“Yes, sir, poor Seth Bard,” he said with a sigh. “He was a good farmer, was Seth. He never knew what hit him. Well, that’s the way it goes.”