_ PART THREE
CHAPTER XXI
He rose at five on Thursday and consumed a hasty breakfast by a blur of artificial light in the deserted hotel dining room. It was pitch black without, the air heavy with moisture, and penetrating. He led the horses from the shed under which he had hitched them to the stage, and climbed with his lantern into the long-familiar place by the whip. A light streamed from the filmy window of the post-office, falling upon tarnished nutcrackers and picks in a faded plush-lined box ranged behind the glass. Gordon could see the dark, moving bulk of the postmaster within. The leather mail bags, slippery in the wet atmosphere, were strapped in the rear, and Gordon was tightening the reins when he was hailed by a man running over the road. It was Simmons' clerk.
"The old man says," he shot between labored breaths, "to keep a watch on Buck. Buckley's coming back with you to-morrow. He's been down to the hospital for a spell. There ain't liable to be anybody else on the stage this time of year."
The horses walked swiftly, almost without guidance, over the obscured way. The stage mounted, turning over the long ascent to the crown of the east range. Gordon put out the lantern. A faint grey diluted the dark; the night sank thinly to morning, a morning overcast with sluggish clouds; the bare trees, growing slowly perceptible, dripped with moisture; a treacherous film of mud overlaid the adamantine road.
The day broke inexpressibly featureless and dreary. The stage dropped to bald, brown valleys, soggy fields and clear, hurrying streams; it rose deliberately to heights blurred in aqueous vapors. The moisture remained suspended throughout the day; the grey pall hid Stenton as he drove up to the tavern that formed his depot on the outskirts of the city.
Later, in the solitude of his room, he heard the hesitating patter of rain on the roof. He thought, stretching his weary frame on the rigorous bed, that if it turned cold through the night, the frozen road would be dangerous to-morrow. _