Just after dark Sam hurried into town, cursing his lameness and Phil, indiscriminately; he wanted to keep things square with Mollie, as he expressed it.
As he came near the house he observed that the little parlor was brilliantly lighted; his heart filled with exultation: “I’ll bet Mollie is expecting me! Let Phil keep his old claims; the girl is worth more than all of them; it will hurt him most to lose her, too. Of course it was all a lie about our going to be married; but I can get her all right, you bet there isn’t many women but that I could get!” with a ridiculous air of importance.
He knocked confidently, and was at once ushered into the midst of a number of guests. Coming as he did, from the darkness, the glare of the lights blinded him; but as he advanced into the room, Cal Wagner said, “We were waiting for you, sir. Please be seated.”
Turning to the group near the center of the room, he continued, “Reverend sir, this is the guest we were expecting; will you now proceed with the ceremony.”
Looking radiantly happy, Mollie and Phil took their places in front of the minister, and the solemn marriage service commenced.
Sam made a bolt for the door; but Cal’s great hand closed over his shoulder like a vise, and he was compelled to stand and see his last shred of revenge slip away from him, amid the happy smiles of those around him.
Then he crept out into the darkness, out of the ken of those who knew him, blaming everybody but himself, yet at war with himself and all the world, because he had not succeeded in ill-doing.
Phil said to his wife: “I am sorry for him; I wish he had been content to be my friend; I did like Sam.”
Of course there was not the slightest opposition to Phil’s assuming control of his own property, but his conscience troubled him because Sam had built the shafthouse: “I had much rather have paid him for it,” he remarked; but when later he learned that neither lumber nor labor were paid for, and all bought upon his credit, he had no more regrets.