his thin cheeks. He was crying like a baby. He threw an arm up across his eyes and stumbled from the room.
However, he had no intention of clerking back of a counter, of getting down rolls of muslin, papers of buttons, for women, if it could be avoided. Priest's store was a long wooden structure with a painted façade and a high platform before it where the mountain wagons unloaded their various merchandise teamed from the railroad, fifty miles distant. The owner had a small glass-enclosed office on the left as you entered the store; and there David found him. He turned, gazing over his glasses, as the other entered.
"How's Allen?" he asked pleasantly. "I heard he was bad; but we certainly look to have him back driving stage."
"I came to see you about that," David replied. "Allen can't never drive again; but, Mr. Priest, sir, I can. Will you give me a try?"
The elder ignored the question in the concern he exhibited for Allen's injury.
"It is a cursed outrage!" he declared. "Those Hatburns will be got up, or my name's not Priest! We'd have them now, but the jail wouldn't keep them overnight, and court three months off."
David preserved a stony silence—the only attitude possible, he had decided, in the face of his patent dereliction.
