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 his bones. But if he had said so, he guessed it would be all right, although neither the company nor he would assume any responsibility.

Simpson largely absolved him and the railroad of all liability, but his spirits had dropped several degrees when he turned from the brief interview. It seemed as if he had climbed down from the wagon in a sweating, eager glow to see the agent, and was returning to it now after having stepped into a cold wind. He drove to the spot indicated by the agent, which was at the end of some cars of lumber, directly behind the depot.

The lumberyard was in front of him, on the left side of the switch where the freight cars stood; the station and town on his right. From town he could not be seen as he pitched the bones from his high-sided wagon, quickly making a hole down to the bottom, starting at the forward end. He had put the spring seat on the ground and hung his gun on the upright, rudely ornamented board called a standard, in the center of the dashboard.

This standard was designed for wrapping the lines when one stopped for some such job as unloading bones. The gun was in the way when he worked. Any exigency calling for the need of it seemed to be so far away from the quietude of the morning that Tom did not give its absence from the handy place where it usually hung a second thought.

That was the domestic hour in Drumwell; the time when women came out to make their purchases, when children were abroad, when homesteaders drove in to transact their business. The dominant forces in that social