CHAPTER XV
And yet on that day when the bobwhites had sounded and the blow had fallen, Sim Colby was nowhere near the opportunity hound’s house. He sat tippling in a mining town two days’ journey away, and he had no knowledge of what went on at home. His companion was ex-Private Severance—once his comrade in arms.
The town was one of those places which discredit the march of industry by the mongrelized character of its outposts. The wild aloofness of the hills and valleys was marred there by the shacks of the camp and its sky soiled by a black reek of coke furnaces.
Filth physical and moral brooded along the unkempt streets where the foul buzz of swarming flies sounded over refuse piles, and that spirit of degradation lay no less upon the unclean tavern, where the two men who had once worn the uniform sat with a bottle of cheap whisky between them.
Colby, who had need to maintain his reputation for probity at home, made an occasional pilgrimage hither to foregather with his former comrade and loosen the galling rein of restraint. Just about the time when the attack on Spurrier’s house had begun, he had leaned forward with his elbows on the table, his face heavy and his eyes inflamed, pursuing some topic of conversation which had already gained headway.
“These hyar fellers that seeks ter git rid of Spurrier,” 202 he confided, “kinderly hinted ’round thet they’d like ter git me ter do ther job for ’em, but I pretended like I didn’t onderstand what they war drivin’ at, no fashion at all.”
“Why didn’t ye hearken ter ’em?” questioned Severance practically. “Hit hain’t every day a man kin git paid fer doin’ what he seeks ter do on his own hook.”
But Colby grinned with a crafty gleam in his eye and poured another drink.