“Yes. I’m the last hand.” Johnny grinned. “Hark! I hear them coming. Sounds creepy, don’t it? They’re fussed. Them two shots have got ’em guessing—they’re sure burning the breeze! Say, I’m going to slip into my slicker. Storm is right on top of us. Getting mighty black overhead. Twilight lasts pretty quick in this country.”
Rain spattered in big drops. Wind-blown flare of stars and the last smoky dusk and flickers of lightning made a thin greenish light. Shadowy horsemen shaped furiously through the murk, became clear, and reined beside them. Dines took one look at them and directed a reproachful glance at his captor.
“I might not have handed over my gun so nice and easy if I had known who was with you,” he remarked pleasantly. A high spot of color flamed to his cheek. “Just for that, you are going to lose the beauties of my conversation from now on—by advice of counsel. While you are putting on your slickers I merely wish to make a plain brief statement and also to call attention to one of the many mercies which crowd about us, and for which we are so ungrateful. Mercies first: Did you ever notice how splendidly it has been arranged that one day follows directly after another, instead of in between? And that maybe we’re sometimes often quite sorry some day for what we did or didn’t do some other day, or the reverse, as the case may be, or perhaps the contrary? Now the statement: I know two of you men, and I don’t like those two; and for the others, I don’t like the company they keep. So now you can all go to hell, home or Hillsboro, and take me with you, but I’ll not entertain you, not if you was bored to death. I’m done and dumb—till I tell it to the judge.”
X
“When the high heart we magnify
And the sure vision celebrate,
And worship greatness passing by—
Ourselves are great.”
—John Drinkwater.
Mr. George Gwinne sprawled at his graceless ease along two chairs; he held a long-stemmed brier-wood pipe between his bearded lips and puffed thoughtfully. The pipestem was long of necessity; with a short stem Mr. Gwinne had certainly set that beard alight. It was a magnificent beard, such as you may not see in these degenerate days. Nor did you see many such in those degenerate days, for that matter. It was long and thick and wide and all that a beard should be; it reached from his two big ears to below the fifth rib. It was silky and wavy and curly, and—alas for poor human nature!—it was kempt and kept—an Assyrian beard. Yet Mr. George Gwinne was, of all the sons of man, unlikeliest to be the victim of vanity. His beard was a dusty red brown, the thick poll of hair on his big square head was dusky red brown, lightly sprinkled with frost, his big eyes were reddish brown; and Argive Helen might have envied his brows, perfect brows in any other setting; merely comic here—no, no, “tragic” is the word, since all else about the man was coarse of grain and fiber, uncouth and repulsive.
His hands were big and awkward, and they swung from arms disproportionately long; his feet were big and flat, his body was big and gross, he was deep-chested and round-shouldered, his neck was a bull’s neck, his ears were big and red, his head was big and coarse and square, his face was gnarled where it was not forested, his chance-seen lips were big and coarse, his nose was a monstrous beak, his voice was a hoarse deep rumble. And somewhere behind that rough husk dwelt a knightly soul, kindly and tender and sensitive—one of that glorious company, “who plotted to be worthy of the world.”