“Nathan, what's going on in town?” broke in Mrs. Porter. “What are you talking about?”
“I don't know what's goin' on now,” Porter drawled out, as he slapped at a fly on his bald pate with an angry hand. “I say I don't know what's goin' on right at this minute, but I know what was jest gittin' ready to go on when I skipped. I reckon the coroner's goin' on with the inquest ef he ain't afeared of an ambush. Jeff Wade—” Porter suddenly bethought himself of something, and he rose, passed through the composite and palpable stare of the whole room, and went to the clock on the mantel-piece and opened it. “Thar!” he said, impatiently. “I wonder what hole you-uns have stuck my chawin'-tobacco in. I put it in the corner of this clock, right under the turpentine-bottle.”
“There's your fool tobacco,” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, running forward and taking the dark plug from beneath the clock. “Fill your mouth with it, maybe it will unlock your jaw. What is the trouble at Springtown?”
“I was jest startin' to tell you,” said Porter, diving into his capacious trousers-pocket for his knife, and slowly opening the blade with his long thumb-nail. “You see, Jeff Wade has at last got wind o' all that gab about Minnie an' Nelson Floyd, an' he sent a war-cry by Pole Baker on hoss-back as fast as Pole could clip it to tell Floyd to arm an' be ready at exactly twelve o'clock, sharp.”
“I knew it would come,” said Mrs. Porter, a combination of finality and resignation in her harsh voice. “I knew Jeff Wade wasn't going to allow that to go on.” She was looking at her daughter, who, white and wide-eyed, stood motionless behind Hattie Mayhew's chair. For a moment no one spoke, though instinctively the general glance went to Cynthia, who, feeling it, turned to the window looking out upon the porch, and stood with her back to the room. Mrs. Porter broke the silence, her words directed to her daughter.
“Jeff Wade will kill that man if he was fool enough to wait and meet him. Do you think Floyd waited, Nathan?”
“No, he didn't wait,” was Porter's answer. “The plucky chap went 'im one better. He sent word by Mel Jones to Wade that it would be indecent to have a rumpus like that in town on a Saturday, when so many women an' childem was settin' round in bullet-range, an' so if it was agreeable he'd ruther have it in the open place at Price's Spring. Mel passed me as he was goin' to Jeff with that word. It's nearly one o'clock now, an' it's my candid opinion publicly expressed that Nelson Floyd has gone to meet a higher power. I didn't want to be hauled up at court as a witness, an' so, as I say, I hit the grit. I've been tied up in other folks's matters before this, an' the court don't allow enough fer witness-fees to tempt me to set an' listen to them long-winded lawyers talk fer a whole week on a stretch.”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Hattie Mayhew. “I'm right sorry for him. He was so handsome and sweet-natured. He had faults and bad ones, if what folks say is true, but they may have been due to the hard life he had when he was a child. I must say I have always been sorry for him; he had the saddest look about the eyes of any human being I ever saw.”
“And he knew how to use his eyes, too,” was the sting Mrs. Porter added to this charitable comment, while her sharp gaze still rested on her daughter.
There was a sound at the window. Cynthia, with unsteady hands, was trying to raise the sash. She finally succeeded in doing this, and in placing the wooden prop under it. There was a steely look in her eyes and her features were rigidly set, her face pale.