"You liked him, an' he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet.
He thought you was a tough, but he didn't mind that no more than I did.
It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always. Things in
life git stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who's goin' to judge
you! I ain't; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an' he never went wrong in
his thinkin'. God! he was wife an' child to me--an' he's dead--dead--
dead."
The man's grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table,
while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. It
was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved
tragedy and suffering--Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow and
hatred which were strangling him.
"Dead an' gone," he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table
quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a
thought, he peered out of the doorway towards Juniper Bend. "That hawk
seen him--it seen him. He's comin', I know it, an' I'll git him--plumb."
He had the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller.
The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched it
almost caressingly. "I ain't let go like this since he was killed,
Sinnet.
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