They should meet him at the front. He beat again on the scarred
wood, waited; and then, in an irrepressible flare of temper, kicked the
door open.
He was conscious of a slight gasping surprise at the dark moldy-
smelling hall open before him. A narrow bare stairway mounted above,
with a passage at one side, and on each hand entrances were shut on
farther interiors. The scraping of a chair, talking came from the left;
the door, he saw, was not latched. He pushed it open and entered. There
was a movement in the room still beyond, and he walked evenly into what
evidently was a kitchen.
The first thing he saw was the mail bag, lying intact on a table. Then
he was meeting the concerted stare of four men. One of two, so similar
that he could not have distinguished between them, he had seen before,
at the edge of the road. Another was very much older, taller, more
sallow. The fourth was strangely fat, with a great red hanging mouth.
The latter laughed uproariously, a jangling mirthless sound followed by
a mumble of words without connective sense. David moved toward the mail
bag:
"I'm driving stage and lost those letters. I'll take them right along."
The oldest Hatburn, with a pail in his hand, was standing by an
opening, obviously at the point of departure on a small errand. He
looked toward the two similar men, nearer David.
"Boy," he demanded, "did you kick in my front door?"
"I'm the Government's agent," David replied.
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