Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/91

Rh "No, and your hearing is excellent," grimly.

"I knew what you was up to, Bryant! I knew you tried to get somebody to run ag'in me."

"Yup. They're all afraid of you up there, Sim. Your uncle was town boss so long he got 'em thinking it belongs to the Burns family."

"If we don't own it, we seem to be in charge."

"And more's the pity, Sim!"

The man turned to the door.

"Much obliged for the two-dollar plaster." Slam! And a rattle of loose glass: the only reply.

The old man laughed to himself and sat down, but he did not turn to Taylor at once. He watched Burns cross the street. A limp curtain in an upper front room of the Commercial House moved back and Jim Harris' face appeared. His hand beckoned to the new supervisor. Sim went into the hotel and up the stairs.

From a drawer Bryant took a worn note book and opened it slowly. He glanced at the clock and on a fresh page wrote:

"May 6, 1920. 11.09 Sim Burns."

He riffled the pages slowly. Many of them were covered with just such notes: dates and time and names; nothing more. He dropped the book and folded his hands across his stomach and looked at John very soberly.

"Son, I'm up a tree and don't see a way down," he said.

The boy looked through the window again and the editor watched his profile carefully. For a moment they were so and then Taylor's expression changed as a shade of hope filtered through its seriousness. Helen Foraker was coming across the muddy street, the bright red of her jacket a vivid splotch of color in the drab little town.