Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/122

 Something was expected of Kellogg by the people who stood in front of their doors, customers grouped around them. He was approaching with the nonchalant, unhurried manner feigned by a man who moves strategically to corner a suspicious horse. If the man moves too quickly, the horse will bolt. There doubtless was no such reasoning in Kellogg's method. It was his way of doing that kind of a thing; a way of building through suspense to a crashing climax.

Dunham felt that crawling ripple of cold run over him that had braced him like a nip of something strong when the cowboy had reached for his gun last night. But he didn't wait for Kellogg to come up, there being a distance of perhaps thirty yards between them. He went on into the hotel and picked out his cigar. Kellogg came sauntering up to the door in his idling, weaving, aimless-appearing way as Dunham tossed away the match.

Kellogg stopped just outside the door, looking at Dunham not so much in malevolence as sneering, goading insult. The whites of his mottled eyes were yellowish; he constricted the lids as if he looked against the sun.

"What're you doin' back in this town?" he inquired, his words as mean as if he loathed them himself, and turned them out as ugly as they could be made.

Dunham didn't reply at once. He stood in his way of meditative consideration that he always assumed when confronted suddenly with a question, head bent a little, eyes downcast, blowing smoke deliberatively. MacKinnon, behind the desk, was nervous. He moved