ike the
face of a very old man; the shadows in the sunken cheeks did not resemble
those on living skin, but were dry and dusty like the autumn leaves. His
gaze was fixed upon the ground at his feet; but, as he drew up to Gordon,
he raised his head.

Into the dullness of his eyes, his slack lips, crept a dim recognition;
among the ashes of his consciousness a spark glowed--a single, live coal
of bitter hate.

"How are you, Buckley?" Gordon pronounced slowly.

The other's hands clenched as the wave of emotion crossed the blank
countenance. Then the hands relaxed, the face was again empty. He
continued, oblivious of Gordon's salutation, of his presence, upon his
way.

Gordon Makimmon stood for a moment gazing after him. Then, as he turned,
he saw that there was a small group of men on the Courthouse lawn; he saw
the sheriff standing facing them from the steps, gesticulating.

II

The purpose of this gathering was instantly apparent to him, it stirred
obscure memories into being.--A property was being publicly sold for
debt.

The trooping thoughts of the past filled his mind; thoughts, it seemed to
him, of another than himself. Surely it had been another Gordon Makimmon
that, sitting before the _Bugle_ office, had heard the sheriff enumerating
the scant properties of the old freehold by the stream to satisfy the
insatiable greed of Valentine Simmons. It had been a younger man than
himself by fifteen years. Yet, actually, it had been scarcely more than
three years since the storekeeper had had him sold out.

That other Makimmon had been a man of incredibly vivid interests and
emotions. Now it appeared to him that, in all the world, there was not a
cause for feeling, not an incentive to rouse the mind from apathy.

Stray periods reached him from the sheriff's recounting of "a highly
desirable piece of property." His loud, flat voice had not changed by an
inflection since he had "called out" Gordon's home; the merely curious or
materially interested onlookers were the same, the dragging bidding had,
apparently, continued unbroken from the other occasion. The dun, identical
repetition added to the overwhelming sense of universal monotony in Gordon
Makimmon's brain. He turned at the corner, by Simmons' store, while the
memories faded; the customary greyness, like a formless drift of cloud
obscuring a mountain height, once more descended upon him.

At the back of the store a small open space was filled with br