And then he went up to
a pine sealed room, like the heated interior of a packing box, where he
partly undressed for bed.
VI
The next mid-morning, descending the sharp grade toward Elbow Barren,
there was no lessening of David's bitterness against the Hatburns. The
flavor of tobacco died in his mouth, he grew unconscious of the
lurching heavy stage, the responsibility of the mail, all committed to
his care. A man was standing by the ditch on the reach of scrubby grass
that fell to the road; and David pulled his team into the slowest walk
possible. It was his first actual sight of a Hatburn. He saw a man
middling tall, with narrow high shoulders, and a clay-yellow
countenance, extraordinarily pinched through the temples, with minute
restless black eyes. The latter were the only mobile feature of his
slouching indolent pose, his sullen regard. He might have been a
scarecrow, David thought, but for that glittering gaze.
The latter leaned forward, the stage barely moving, and looked
unwaveringly at the Hatburn beyond. He wondered whether the man knew
him--David Kinemon? But of course he did; all the small details of
mountain living circulated with the utmost rapidity from clearing to
clearing. He was now directly opposite the other; he could take out the
revolver and kill that Hatburn, where he stood, with one precise shot.
His hand instinctively reached under the seat. Then he remembered
Allen, forever dependent on the couch; his mother, who had lately
seemed so old.
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