Whispering Smith

  CHAPTER VII

  IN MARION'S SHOP

  In Boney Street, Medicine Bend, stands an early-day row of one-storybuildings; they once made up a prosperous block, which has longsince fallen into the decay of paintless days. There is in BoneyStreet a livery stable, a second-hand store, a laundry, a bakery, amoribund grocery, and a bicycle shop, and at the time of thisstory there was also Marion Sinclair's millinery shop; but thebetter class of Medicine Bend business, such as the gamblinghouses, saloons, pawnshops, restaurants, barber shops, and thosesensitive, clean-shaven, and alert establishments known as "gents'stores," had deserted Boney Street for many years. Bats fly in thedark of Boney Street while Front Street at the same hour is a blazeof electricity and frontier hilarity. The millinery store stoodnext to the corner of Fort Street. The lot lay in an "L," and atthe rear of the store the first owner had built a small connectingcottage to live in. This faced on Fort Street, so that Marion hadher shop and living-rooms communicating, and yet apart. The storebuilding is still pointed out as the former shop of Marion Sinclair,where George McCloud boarded when the Crawling Stone Line was built,where Whispering Smith might often have been seen, where Sinclairhimself was last seen alive in Medicine Bend, where DicksieDunning's horse dragged her senseless one wild mountain night, andwhere, indeed, for a time the affairs of the whole mountain divisionseemed to tangle in very hard knots.

  As to the millinery business, it was never, after Marion bought theshop, more than moderately successful. The demand that existed inMedicine Bend for red hats of the picture sort Marion declined torecognize. For customers who sought these she turned out hats ofsombre coloring calculated to inspire gloom rather than revelry, andshe naturally failed to hold what might be termed the miscellaneousbusiness. But after Dicksie Dunning of the Stone Ranch, fresh from theconvent, rode into the shop, or if not into it nearly so, and, glidingthrough the door, ordered a hat out of hand, Marion always had somebusiness. All Medicine Bend knew Dicksie Dunning, who dressedstunningly, rode famously, and was so winningly democratic that halfthe town never called her anything, at a distance, but Dicksie.

  The first hat was a small affair but haughty. The materials wereunheard of in Marion's stock and had to be sent for. Marion'sarrangements with the jobbing houses always had a C. O. D. complexion;the jobbers maintained that this saved book-keeping, and Marion, whoof course never knew any better, paid the double express charges likea lamb. She acted, too, as banker for the other impecunioustradespeople in the block, and as this included nearly all of them shewas often pressed for funds herself. McCloud undertook sometimes tointervene and straighten out her millinery affairs. One evening hewent so far as to attempt an inventory of her stock and some scheduleof her accounts; but Marion, with the front-shop curtains closelydrawn and McCloud perspiring on a step-ladder, inspecting boxes offeathers and asking stern questions, would look so pathetically sweetand helpless when she tried to recall what things cost that McCloudcould not be angry with her; indeed, the pretty eyes behind thepatient spectacles would disarm any one. In the end he took inventoryon the basis of the retail prices, dividing it afterward by five, asMarion estimated the average profit in the business at five hundredper cent.--this being what the woman she bought out had told her.

  How then, McCloud asked himself, could Marion be normally hard pressedfor money? He talked to her learnedly about fixed charges, but eventhese seemed difficult to arrive at. There was no rent, because thebuilding belonged to the railroad company, and when the real-estateand tax man came around and talked to McCloud about rent for the BoneyStreet property, McCloud told him to chase himself. There was noinsurance, because no one would dream of insuring Marion's stockboxes; there were no bills payable, because no travelling man wouldadvise a line of credit to an inexperienced and, what was worse, anunpractical milliner. Marion did her own trimming, so there were nosalaries except to Katie Dancing. It puzzled McCloud to find the leak.How could he know that Marion was keeping nearly all the blocksupplied with funds? So McCloud continued to raise the price of histable-board, and, though Marion insisted he was paying her too much,held that he must be eating her out of house and home.

  In her dining-room, which connected through a curtained door with theshop, McCloud sat one day alone eating his dinner. Marion was in frontserving a customer. McCloud heard voices in the shop, but gave no heedtill a man walked through the curtained doorway and he saw MurraySinclair standing before him. The stormy interview with Callahan andBlood at the Wickiup had taken place just a week before, and McCloud,after what Sinclair had then threatened, though not prepared, felt ashe saw him that anything might occur. McCloud being in possession ofthe little room, however, the initiative fell on Sinclair, who,looking his best, snatched his hat from his head and bowed ironically."My mistake," he said blandly.

  "Come right in," returned McCloud, not knowing whether Marion had apossible hand in her husband's unexpected appearance. "Do you want tosee me?"

  "I don't," smiled Sinclair; "and to be perfectly frank," he added withstudied consideration, "I wish to God I never had seen you.Well--you've thrown me, McCloud."

  "You've thrown yourself, haven't you, Murray?"

  "From your point of view, of course. But, McCloud, this is a smallcountry for two points of view. Do you want to get out of it, or doyou want me to?"

  "The country suits me, Sinclair."

  "No man that has ever played me dirt can stay here while I stay."Sinclair, with a hand on the portiere, was moving from the doorwayinto the room. McCloud in a leisurely way rose, though with a slightlyflushed face, and at that juncture Marion ran into the room and spokeabruptly. "Here is the silk, Mr. Sinclair," she exclaimed, handing tohim a package she had not finished wrapping. "I meant you to wait inthe other room."

  "It was an accidental intrusion," returned Sinclair, maintaining hisirony. "I have apologized, and Mr. McCloud and I understand oneanother better than ever."

  "Please say to Miss Dunning," continued Marion, nervous and insistent,"that the band for her riding-hat hasn't come yet, but it should behere to-morrow."

  As she spoke McCloud leaned across the table, resolved to takeadvantage of the opening, if it cost him his life. "And by the way,Mr. Sinclair, Miss Dunning wished me to say to you that the lovely baycolt you sent her had sprung his shoulder badly, the hind shoulder, Ithink, but they are doing everything possible for it and they think itwill make a great horse."

  Sinclair's snort at the information was a marvel of indecision. Was hebeing made fun of? Should he draw and end it? But Marion faced himresolutely as he stood, and talking in the most business-like way shebacked him out of the room and to the shop door. Balked of hisopportunity, he retreated stubbornly but with the utmost politeness,and left with a grin, lashing his tail, so to speak.

  Coming back, Marion tried to hide her uneasiness under even tones toMcCloud. "I'm sorry he disturbed you. I was attending to a customerand had to ask him to wait a moment."

  "Don't apologize for having a customer."

  "He lives over beyond the Stone Ranch, you know, and is taking somethings out for the Dunnings to-day. He likes an excuse to come in herebecause it annoys me. Finish your dinner, Mr. McCloud."

  "Thank you, I'm done."

  "But you haven't eaten anything. Isn't your steak right?"

  "It's fine, but that man--well, you know how I like him and how helikes me. I'll content myself with digesting my temper."