In another minute Goatry was leading the horse away from the post-office, while Foyle stood waiting quietly at the door. The departing footsteps of the horse brought Halbeck swiftly to the doorway, with a letter in his hand.
“Hi, there, you damned sucker!” he called after Goatry, and then saw Foyle waiting.
“What the hell—!” he said, fiercely, his hand on something in his hip-pocket.
“Keep quiet, Dorl. I want to have a little talk with you. Take your hand away from that gun—take it away!” he added, with a meaning not to be misunderstood.
Halbeck knew that one shout would have the town on him, and he did not know what card his brother was going to play. He let his arm drop to his side. “What’s your game? What do you want?” he asked, surlily.
“Come over to the Happy Land Hotel,” Foyle answered, and in the light of what was in his mind his words had a grim irony.
With a snarl Halbeck stepped out. Goatry, who had handed the horse over to the hostler, watched them coming.
“Why did I never notice the likeness before?” Goatry said to himself. “But, gosh! what a difference in the men. Foyle’s going to double cinch him this time, I guess.”
He followed them inside the hall of the Happy Land. When they stepped into the sitting-room, he stood at the door waiting. The hotel was entirely empty, the roisterers at the Prairie Home having drawn off the idlers and spectators. The barman was nodding behind the bar, the proprietor was moving about in the backyard inspecting a horse. There was a cheerful warmth everywhere; the air was like an elixir; the pungent smell of a pine-tree at the door gave a kind of medicament to the indrawn breath. And to Billy Goat, who sometimes sang in the choir of a church not a hundred miles away—for the people agreed to forget his occasional sprees—there came, he knew not why, the words of a hymn he had sung only the preceding Sunday:
| “As pants the hart for cooling streams, When heated in the chase—” |