ed in a loud, ugly voice; "you know the size of every pocketbook in
Greenstream; I'll bet, by God, you and old man Hollidew know personal
every copper Indian on the pennies of the County."

Valentine Simmons smiled at this conception. Gordon regarded him with
hopeless, growing anger: Why, the old screw took that for a compliment!

"This is Wednesday," the storekeeper pronounced; "say, by Saturday ... the
sum I mentioned."

"It can't be done." The last vestiges of Gordon's control were fast
melting in the heat of his passion. Simmons turned to the narrow ledger,
picking up a pen. "When you bought," he remarked precisely, over his
shoulders, "the white shoes and ammunition and silk fishing lines--didn't
you intend to pay for them?"

"Yes, I did, and will. And when you said, 'Gordon, help yourself, load up,
try those flies'; and 'Never mind the bill now, some other time, old
friends pay when they please,' didn't you know I was getting in over my
head? didn't you encourage it ... so you could get judgment on me? sell me
out? Though what you settled on me for, what you see in my ramshackle
house and used up ground, is over me."

Simmons flashed a momentary, crafty glance at the other. "Never overlook a
location on good water," he advised.

Gordon Makimmon stood speechless, trembling with rage. For a moment
Simmons' pen, scratching over the page, made the only sound in the small
enclosure, then, "The provident man," he continued, "is always made a
target for the abuse of the--the thoughtless. But he usually comes to the
assistance of his unfortunate brother. You might arrange a loan."

"Why, so I might," Gordon assented in a thick voice; "I could get it from
your provident friend, Hollidew--three hundred dollars, say, at hell's per
cent; a little lien on my property. 'Never overlook a situation on good
water.'

"By God!" he exclaimed, suddenly prescient, "but I've done for myself."

And he thought of Clare, of Clare fighting eternally that sharp pain in
her side, her face now drawn and glistening with the sweat of suffering,
now girlishly gay. He thought of her fragile hands so impotent to cope
with the bitter poverty of the mountains. What, with their home, her place
of retreat and security, gone, and--it now appeared more than
probable--his occupation vanished, would she do?

"I've done for myself, for her," he repeated, subconsciously aloud, in a
harsh whisper. He stood rigid, unseeing; a pulse beat visibly in th