Doubtless, Colby reasoned, Spurrier was coming to his lonely house with a purpose of venom and punishment, yet he walked boldly and to the outward glance he seemed unarmed. Hence it must be that in the former army officer’s plan lay some intent more complex than mere open-and-shut meeting and slaying: some carefully planned and guileful climax to be approached by indirection. Very well, he would also play the game out, burying his suspicion under a guise 133 of artlessness, but watching every move—and when the moment came striking first.
At a brook, as he hastened toward his house by a short cut, he knelt to drink, for his throat was damnably dry, and in the clear water the pasty pallor and terror of his face was given back to him, and warned him. But also the mirroring brought another thought and the thought fathered swift action. In the army he had been spare and clean-shaven and a scar had marked his chin. Now he was bearded. He carried a beefier bulk and an altered appearance.
Could there be any possibility of Spurrier’s failing to recognize him—of his having been, after all, ignorant of his presence here?
Yet his eyes would be recognizable. They were arrestingly distinctive, for one of them was pale-blue and the other noticeably grayish.
By the path he was following, stalks of Jimson weed grew rank, and Sim, rising from his knees, pulled off a handful of leaves and crushed them between his palms. When he had reached the house his first action was to force from this bruised leafage a few drops of liquid into a saucer and this juice he carefully injected into his eyes.
Then he went to the door and squinted up at the sun. It would be fifteen minutes before Spurrier would arrive and fifteen minutes might be enough. He half closed his eyes, because they were stinging painfully, and sat waiting, to all appearances indolent and thoughtless.
Spurrier plodded on, measuring the distance to the smoke thread until he came in view of the cabin 134 itself, then he approached slowly since the stiff climb had winded him.
Now he could see the shingle roof and the log walls, trailed over with morning-glory vines, and in the door the slouching figure of a man. He came on and the native rose lazily.
“My name’s John Spurrier,” called out the traveler, “and Lawyer Cappeze cited you to me as a man who might shelter me overnight.”
The man who had deserted chewed nonchalantly on a grass straw and regarded the other incuriously—which was a master bit of dissembling. Between them, it seemed to Sim Colby who had once been Private Grant, lay the body of a murdered captain. Between them, too, lay the guilt of his assassination. To the Easterner’s appraisal this heavy-set mountaineer with unkempt hair and ragged beard was merely a local type and yet in one respect he was unforgettable.