“How ridiculous!” He laughed mechanically. “There must be some mistake, Cynthia. People always get things crooked. That shows how little truth there is in reports. Wade came in here and paid his bill, and did not even speak to me or I to him.”
“But I heard pistol shots myself away down the road,” said the girl, “and as I came in I saw a group of men right there. They were pointing down at the sidewalk, and one of them said, ‘He stood right there and fired three times.’”
Floyd laughed again, while her lynx eyes slowly probed his face. He pointed at the court-house door. “Cynthia, do you see that envelope? Wade was shooting at it. I haven’t been over to see yet, but they say he put three balls close together in its centre. We ought to incorporate this place into a town so that a thing of that sort wouldn’t be allowed.”
“Oh, that was it!” Cynthia exclaimed in a full breath of relief. “I suppose you think I’m a goose to be so scared at nothing.”
Floyd’s face clouded over, his eyes went down. A customer was going into the store, and he walked on to the street corner with her before replying. Then he said tenderly: “I’m glad, though, Cynthia, that you felt badly, as I see you did, when you thought I was done for. Good-bye; I shall see you again some way, I hope, before long, even if your mother does object.”
As they walked away out of his sight Pole Baker lowered his shaggy head to his brawny hands, his elbows resting on his knees.
“Fool!” he exclaimed. “Right now with his head in the very jaws o’ death he goes on talkin’ sweet stuff to women. A purty face, a soft voice an’ a pair o’ dreamy eyes would lead that man right into the fire o’ hell itself. But that hain’t the p’int. Pole Baker, he’s yore friend, an’ Jeff Wade is a-goin’ to kill ’im jest as shore as preachin’.”
When Pole left the store he saw nothing of Floyd, but he noticed something else. He was passing Thigpen’s bar and through the open doorway he caught sight of a row of bottles behind the counter. A seductive, soothing odor greeted him; there was a merry clicking of billiard balls in the rear, the joyous thumping of cues on the floor and merry laughter. Pole hesitated and then plunged in. At any rate, he told himself, one drink would steady his nerves and show him some way, perhaps, to rescue Floyd from his overhanging peril. Pole took his drink and sat down. Then a friend came in and gave him two or three more. Another of Pole’s sprees was beginning.
(To be continued.)
When Beauty Is a Fatal Gift