it cast a rich pattern of light and shade
on the Courthouse lawn and the small assemblage of merely idle or
interested persons gathered for the sale. The sheriff stood facing them
under the towering pillars of the portico; his voice rang clearly through
the air. To Gordon the occasion, the loud sing-song of the sheriff,
appeared unreal, dreamlike; he listened incredulously to the meager
cataloguing of his dwelling, the scant acreage, with an innate sense of
outrage, of a shameful violation of his privacy. He was still unable to
realize that his home and his father's, the clearing that his grandfather
had cut from the wild, was actually passing from his possession. He
summoned in vain the emotions which, he told himself, were appropriate.
The profound discouragement within him would not be lifted to emotional
heights: lassitude settled over him like a fog.

The bidding began in scattered, desultory fashion, mounting slowly by
hundreds. Eighteen hundred dollars was offered, and there the price
obstinately hung.

The owner of the _Bugle_ appeared at his door, and nodded mysteriously to
Gordon, who rose and listlessly obeyed the summons. The former closed the
door with great care, and lowered a faded and torn shade over the front
window. Then he retired to a small space divided from the body of the
office by a curtain suspended from a sagging wire. He brought his face
close to Gordon's ear. "Have a nip?" he asked, in a solemn, guarded
fashion. Gordon assented.

A bottle was produced from a cupboard, and, together with a tin cup,
handed to him.

"Luck," he pronounced half-heartedly, raising the cup to his lips. When
the other had gone through a similar proceeding the process was carefully
reversed--the bottle was returned to the cupboard, the tin cup suspended
upon its hook, the steps retraced and the curtain once more coaxed up, the
door thrown open.

The group on the Courthouse lawn were stringing away; on the steps the
sheriff was conversing with Valentine Simmons' brother, a drab individual
who performed the storekeeper's public services and errands. The sale had
been consummated. The long, loose-jointed dwelling accumulated by
successive generations of Makimmons had passed out of their possession.

A poignant feeling of loss flashed through Gordon's apathy; suddenly his
eyes burned, and an involuntary sharp inspiration resembled a gasp, a sob.
A shadow ran over the earth. The owner of the _Bugle_ stepped out and