But for that disfiguring scar and the marks of dissipation revealed so plentifully in his countenance, Tom Conover would not have been a bad-looking man. There was a week’s growth of stubble on his face, but with that cut away, his features would have been comely enough. His eyes were of a steely blue. They were watery now, but normally they were keen and farsighted—the eyes of a man long used to looking on the vast reaches of the mountains and deserts, where for so many years he had made his home. He was tall and straight, too, with a symmetry of form which his recent debauch, and the baggy clothing he wore, could not wholly hide. As for his years, he was probably fifty, or near it; and his hair was tinged with gray. It had been black, and round the edges of that livid scar it still showed black, thrusting the scar out by way of contrast, so that it seemed to stand forth as vividly as a cattle brand.
His face hardened as he touched the scar with his finger and old memories swept over him, and once more he looked off at the serrated mountains against the sky line. A notch there drew and held his gaze, and in imagination he traveled along it, by way of a trail he knew well, far into the ragged range.
There had been strange doings in some of the valleys of those mountains, and he had taken part in them. His mind began to fill with unpleasant pictures.
He frowned as they trooped in on him; then, snatching up his revolver, he fired again at the queen of hearts. Shot followed shot in roaring succession, until the revolver was emptied and the playing card was torn into shreds.
His fusillade drew Mexicans to the doors of their huts and shabby jacals. The playing children scampered out of the street dust and out of sight. There were also cries of indignation, and of fear, together with some sharp commands laid on him to desist.
But he only laughed with unnatural recklessness and gayety as he proceeded to empty his revolver and shatter the card.
When the last cartridge was spent and the card hung but a thing of shreds, he got up from the stone, pulled the remnants of the card from the trunk of the mesquite, and ground them out of sight into the deep dust of the road.
“The bullock carts will make a finish of it, if I haven’t,” he said, as he looked at the hole his heel had gouged. “And now maybe I can git away from them old memories. When I go back East I want to be another man—a new man altogether, and I don’t want to think even of the things that’s happened out here. I was in the wrong, of course; but not all in the wrong. And I don’t want any more gold—I mean any more hunting for gold, or nothing. I jest want to git away—away—away!”
His voice rose.
At the end of this outburst, as he turned about, he became aware of a commotion in and about the huts and jacals, and in the road which led to the town. Mexican women were shrieking and wailing, and the voices of Mexican men rose in curses in the local patois. Some of the men were issuing from the huts in a threatening manner.