The last sound that reached their ears was the ironic note of a
war whoop repeated again and again.
CHAPTER XII
WITHIN THE CONQUEROR'S OWN COUNTRY
It was the day set for the wedding, the eighteenth since the girl had
left, the sixteenth since a new mound had arisen on the bare lot
adjoining that beneath which rested Landman Bud Smith, the twelfth since
How Landor had arrived to haunt the tiny railway terminus. The one train
from the East was due at 8:10 of the morning. It was now eight o'clock.
Within the shambling, ill-kept hotel, with its weather-stained exterior
and its wind-twisted sign, the best room, paid for in advance and
freshly dusted for the occasion, awaited an occupant. In a stall of the
single livery, a pair of half-wild bronchos, fed and harnessed according
to directions, were passively waiting. An old surrey, recently oiled and
tightened in all its senile joints, was drawn up conveniently to the
door. In a tiny room, designated the study, of the Methodist parsonage,
on the straggling outskirts of the town, the only minister the
settlement boasted sat staring at the unpapered wall opposite. He was a
mild-featured young man of the name of Mitchell, recently graduated from
a school of theology, and for that reason selected as a sacrifice to the
frontier. In front of him on the desk lay a duly prepared marriage
licence, and upon it a bright gold half eagle. From time to time he
glanced thereat peculiarly, and in sympathy from it to the tiny
fast-ticking clock at its side.
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