Buckley, in stammering, shocked rage, began to curse Gordon’s clumsiness, and, in his excitement, the wound bled more redly. “You will have to keep quiet,” he was told, “for this afternoon anyhow.”
“I’m not a ’dam’ blind bat,” Gordon informed his victim in a rapid undertone; “my eyes are sharper than usual to-day.” Above the stained bandage Simmons’ gaze was blankly enraged. “That won’t danger you none,” Gordon continued, in louder, apparently unstudied tones; “but you can’t kiss the girls for a couple of weeks.”
Buckley Simmons was assisted into the rear seat; Lettice sat alone, her face hidden by the flowery rim of her hat; Merlier was silent, indifferent, bland. The way grew increasingly wilder, and climbed and climbed; at their back dipped and spread mile upon mile of unbroken hemlock; the minute clearings, the solitary cabins, were lost in the still expanse of tree tops; the mountain towered blue, abrupt, before them. The stranger consulted a small map. “This is Buck Mountain,” he announced rather than queried; “Greenstream Village is beyond, west from here, with the valley running north and south.”
“You have got us laid out right,” Gordon assented; “this all’s not new to you.” It was as close to the direct question as Gordon Makimmon could bring himself. And, in the sequel, it proved the wisdom of his creed; for, obviously, the other avoided the implied query. “The Government prints a good map,” he remarked, and turned his shoulder squarely upon any prolongation of the conversation.
They were now at the summit of Buck Mountain, but dense juniper thickets hid from them any extended view. After a turn, over the washed, rocky road, the Greenstream Valley lay outspread below.
The sun was lowering, and the shadow of the western range swept down the great, somber, wooded wall towering against an illimitable vault of rosy light; the lengthening shadows of the groves of trees on the lower slope fell into the dark, cool, emerald cleft. It was scarcely three fields across the shorn, cultivated space to the opposite, precipitous barrier; between, the valley ran narrow and rich into a faint, broken haze of peaks thinly blue on either hand. And, held in the still green heart of that withdrawn, hidden space, the village lay along its white highway.
The stage dropped with short, sharp rushes down the winding road; the houses lost the toy-like aspect of distance; cowbells clashed faintly; a dog’s bark quivered, suspended in hushed space. The stage passed the first, scattered houses, and was speedily in the village: each dwelling had, behind a white picket fence, a strip of sod and a tangle of simple, gay flowers—scarlet, white, purple and yellow, now coated with a fine, chalky, summer dust. The dwellings were, for the most part, frame, with a rare structure of brick under mansard slates green with moss. The back yards were fenced from the fields, on which hay had been cut and stood in high ricks, now casting long, mauve shadows over the close, brilliant green. The stage passed the white board structure of the Methodist Church, and stopped before the shallow portico of the post-office.