Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/275

 although he did not allow himself to believe the balky horse had experienced a reformation that would hold a great while. Every hour gained without a stop was at least three miles more on the way. At the rate he was going, Tom calculated on reaching town about noon.

In gratifying variance of his form, the troublesome horse kept steadily on. When he set to it earnestly that way there was not a better animal in the team. Tom forgave him much of yesterday's annoyance on account of the gratifying willingness to today. It was a little past noon when he came in sight of town, the southern end of the road being the rougher, a sight which dispelled the pleasant speculations of the morning and brought him straight down to the ground.

Yet Tom Simpson had seen trouble sufficient to know that it will come along fast enough without running ahead, even speculatively, to encounter it. What was to come, if anything, in that shape, would be the contrivance of somebody else. He had not driven there hunting trouble, although he had come heeled to meet it. His plan was to drive to the unloading place, leave his bones, pull up before a store like a man with a clear conscience and well within his rights, make his purchases and get out of town as quickly and quietly as dignity would permit.

There was a stretch of road, half a mile or more, leading into Drumwell as straight as the surveyor's transit could draw it, designed, one might believe, as a special straightaway for cowboys to put on a spurt and make a demonstration of speed and racket as they rode into the place of refreshment. This piece of road had a slight downhill tip into town, where it met the main and only