PAINTED ROCK
for my supper and he to consider how to save his reputation for peace and law and order. It came very nearly being wounded badly in less than two hours.
After supper and a smoke at Hamilton's I walked across the plaza, and to and fro there for a while, and then strolled into Main Street. Habersham's house was in the outskirts of the town to the north-west, and to get to Weekes' from his place he had to go through Main Street to get to South Street, where the store was. My luck happened to make me the very first man to see Habersham that night, and when I saw him I was shaken up. He was white and fevered, haggard and strained, and his eyes were like live coals. That might have passed, perhaps, but he carried a shotgun, and it was notorious that he was one of the few men in the town who never carried a weapon of any kind. He never saw me as I passed, and for a moment I was paralysed. I knew that he was going to Weekes' store, and that if he got there he or Weekes would not survive the meeting. There were men in town who would have said it was none of their
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