Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/109

 track; two cow-ponies were hitched to a rail; stray citizens went by in their shirt-sleeves, some dressed in the black that civilisation puts on as mourning for primitive colours. I saw ancient types that I had known long years before. I was in a dream.

And suddenly I saw a ghost.

That is it—I saw a ghost; it was the man beneath Tom Willett, and Northrop said casually, without a glance at me—

"My new partner—Thompson!"

I might have been shaking hands with Jack Willett, with the man that Briggs had "thrown lead" at!

"I'm glad—glad to see you," said Tom; "what's brought you, and what's wrong?"

For a moment I really couldn't speak; the likeness was so extraordinary, so almost appalling. The new man was brown as a berry; his eyes were clear; the look of the West had come there more swiftly than I had ever seen it come. And it is to be remembered that it only comes to men; cowards don't get it, and those whose souls are soaked in percentages don't raise it. It is the gift of the