“ ‘It is very good,’ he said at last, cunningly, ‘but I am sorry there is only one. I do not know that it is worth very much. But now I will pay you as I promised. There was no agreement that you should receive the other young man’s share, and there is only one specimen. But I will pay you.’
“Scott was fumbling in his belt. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you will pay me,’ and he leaned forward with something in his hand. We saw Henkel’s face turn to yellow wax, and he tried to stand up, but he was too stout to lift himself quickly. He had no time to turn before Scott shot him through the heart.
“When I broke through the vines, Scott was moving the butterfly out of the way . . . . . He looked up at me with his old considering look, his old clean smile. ‘It was cheap at the price,’ he said, touching one golden wing with his finger.”
STORIES
Joyce was at his tenth story, the pipes were drawing well, and the birch logs singing softly, while Father John gazed at his entertainers with fascinated eyes.
“. . . . And so he fell into the car, and the grain poured in on him, and there he was, buried. That car wasn’t unloaded until spring, and then out he came like a board, and they buried him again, and no one knew he was heir to a million.”
Father John made a stunned, murmuring noise, and his hosts looked upon him fondly. Only Morris was discontented.
“I thought he’d have come out alive.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. Fed on the grain . . . .”