196
XVIII ON THE ROAD 205
XIX A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION 216
XX HOW THE TRUST BOUGHT MEDICINE 225
XXI SCIPIO MAKES PREPARATIONS 236
XXII SUNDAY MORNING IN SUFFERING CREEK 240
XXIII A BATH AND-- 247
XXIV --A BIBLE TALK 259
XXV WILD BILL FIRES A BOMB 267
XXVI WILD BILL INSPECTS HIS CLAIM 274
XXVII SUSPENSE 285
XXVIII JAMES 296
XXIX THE GOLD-STAGE 304
XXX ON THE SPAWN CITY TRAIL 316
XXXI THE BATTLE 325
XXXII A MAN'S LOVE 335
XXXIII THE REASON WHY 346
XXXIV THE LUCK OF SCIPIO 353
XXXV HOME 363

THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK

CHAPTER I

POTTER'S CLAY

Scipio moved about the room uncertainly. It was characteristic of him.
Nature had given him an expression that suggested bewilderment, and,
somehow, this expression had got into his movements.

He was swabbing the floor with a rag mop; a voluntary task, undertaken
to relieve his wife, who was lounging over the glowing cookstove,
reading a cheap story book. Once or twice he paused in his labors, and
his mild, questioning blue eyes sought the woman's intent face. His
stubby, work-soiled fingers would rake their way through his
straw-colored hair, which grew sparsely and defiantly, standing out at
every possible unnatural angle, and the mop would again flap into the
muddy water, and continue its process of smearing the rough boarded
floor.

Now and again the sound of children's voices floated in through the
open doorway, and at each shrill piping the man's pale eyes lit into a
smile of parental tenderness. But his work went on steadily, for such
was the deliberateness of his purpose.

The room was small, and already three-quarters of it had been
satisfactorily smeared, an