Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/252

 trick somebody had turned on him, vaguely conscious of the strange quietude of the town. The street was deserted; there was not a boot-heel thumping the board sidewalks its entire length. The hitching-racks were empty, but that was to be expected so early in the day. A woman was coming out of the butcher shop, turning toward the railroad, the sole person abroad in the length of that sunny street.

It looked like a trifling, unsubstantial place, Bill thought, spread out like a spatter of something dropped in a dusty road. A mean looking town, as ugly as botch carpenters could build it and hot sun could warp it out of shape; a place a man ought to be happier for leaving than living in, not one thing about it that even success could endear.

The woman was coming over that way, her dress blowing in the wind that always set in about eight o'clock. The sun flashed on a ring she wore on the hand that held her package of meat, and she came along nimbly, bending a little to shield her eyes from the sun. The agent's wife, he recognized her, a young, comely woman whom he had seen helping her husband at the telegraph keys.

She looked pale and agitated, Dunham thought, as she hurried across the rails, coming to the platform where it sloped wedge-like to the ground, a few yards from where he stood. Her eyes were big and frightened as she came up to him, and Dunham turned away, feeling a debasing sweep of shame for the notoriety of his name that made a woman afraid to pass him by.