Curt Dawson could hardly have been more than thirty and was in the full prime of his youthful strength, hard as hickory and in the same rough fashion as the pines among which he had grown, commanding in appearance and pungent in personality. I found my eyes dwelling on him, and later on this scrutiny bore results. No one who had once seen this young desperado could fail to recognize him on second meeting. His manner of addressing the judge carried the assurance of the confidential man, and a certain arrogance of demeanor.
We had left our bags outside and I took up a position near the door where I could watch the twisting ruts of the drab road. We talked, as we waited, of the outside world and Garvin astonished me by his grasp on general affairs.
At last Marcus arrived and his coming made a strange picture which dwells still in my mind. The western sky was all ash of rose and the higher clouds were dark masses edged with gold. The hills were gray and frowning ramparts with bristling crests. Against this setting, around the shoulder of the mountain, appeared a grotesque cortège.
A half-score of rough men mounted on unkempt horses came slowly and gloomily into view. They maintained, as they rode, the slovenly formation of a hollow square and across their pommels lay repeating rifles. The battered rims of their felt hats drooped over sharp-featured faces.
The only unarmed member of the group rode at the center of the square. He was tall and unspeakably gaunt. One looked at his worn and rugged face and thought of the earlier portraits of Abraham Lincoln; the portraits of lean and battling days. The collar of his threadbare overcoat was upturned, but at the opening one had the glimpse of a narrow black necktie slipped askew. The clean-shaven line of his mouth was set in relentless determination.
The bodyguard rode with hanging reins, and each right hand lay in counterfeited carelessness on the lock of its rifle.
"Thar he comes now," commented Garvin. "You must excuse me if I don't go out to introduce you. He's a bitter kind of feller. You understand how it is."
At Weighborne's signal his attorney halted and the men of the bodyguard drew rein, keeping their places about him. We walked out to the middle of the road, and while we talked to the rawboned, life-battered man in the center of the hollow square, his attendants shouted greetings to the loungers on the porch of the store. These greetings partook of the nature of pleasantries and the only note of frank hostility came from the throats of the hounds. They bristled and growled with an instinct which was softened by no artificial code of hypocrisy. Still, so long as the halt lasted, the two parties kept their eyes alertly fixed on each other. It needed little penetration to discover that the geniality was shallow and temporary, like that between the outposts of hostile armies lying close-camped, across an interval soon to be closed in battle.