“If this ain’t a surprise! Must be four-five years since you been to town! Meat I been sendin’ you by Lantry’s been all right? What kin I do for you? Butchered this mornin’—got fresh beef. How ’bout a nice thin steak?”

She made her purchases slowly and moved to the staples counter. She insisted on being left until the last.

“I ain’t in no hurry.”

The store was almost empty and ready to close when she gathered her sacks together and climbed into the Lantrys’ wagon, waiting outside the door. As Lantry clicked to his horse and they moved off she did not notice that the man she had hoped desperately to see was just strolling into the store.

“Gimme a couple o’ packs o’ Camels to tide me over Sunday.”

“Fifteen cents straight now, Trax.”

“Jest one, then.”

The storekeeper spoke across the vacant store to his wife, rolling up the bolts of cloth.

“Edna, you have better manners with the customers, or we’ll be losing ’em. Why’n’t you take up some time with Mis’ Syles?”

“Who?”

“Mis’ Syles—Jim Syles’ widder—ol’ man Terry’s daughter—lives four-five mile south, out beyond Lantry’s. You knew her, Edna. Lantry’s been buyin’ for her.”

“I never knowed her. How’d I know her now? Why’n’t you call her by name, so’s I’d of knowed?”

“Well, you keep better track of her if she’s goin’ to take to comin’ to town agin. She’s rich.”

Trax turned in the doorway.

“You talkin’ about that gank-gutted woman left jest now?”

He had avoided going into the store until she left. He had not intended to bring her volubility upon him in public, have her refer to their meal together. He had half-guessed she had come looking for him. Women did.

“She live alone in a two-story house you cain’t see from the road?”

“That’s her,” the storekeeper agreed. “That’s Mis’ Syles, a’right.”

“She’s rich?”

“I mean rich. Got her five dollars a week steady rent-money from turpentine, an’ three thousand dollars insurance in the bank her daddy left her. An’ then lives t’other end o’ nowhere. Won’t leave the old house.”

“ ’Bout time somebody was fixin’ to marry all that, goin’ to waste.”

“She wouldn’t suit you, Trax. You didn’t git a good look at her. You been used to ’em younger an’ purtier.”

The man Colton was excited. He walked out of the store without the customary “Well, evenin’ ” of departure. He hurried to Blaine’s, where he was boarding, but did not go in. It was necessary to sit alone on the bench outside and think. His luck had not deserted him. As he leaned his dark head back against the wall, the tropical stars glittering over him were the bright lights of city streets. Here and there a fat star flickered. These were the burnished kerosene lamps of the widow Syles. The big room—the fireplace that would heat it on the coolest nights—one by one he drew out the remembered details and tucked them into his plans.