Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1940-11-29
CHAPTER I

of her house, locked it, chained it,
leaned against it, her knees fluid,
her heart pounding.
1.-The old fool!" She choked with
fury. The addle-headed, pathetic,
impudent old fool!"
Hot red surged into her strong,
shrewd face. Then it ebbed a lit
tie. She pushed back a gray wave
of hair with a gesture naive and
disturbed. She was fifty-two. A tall,
strong woman with power in every
inch of her tallness, in the wide de-
cisive gentleness of her mouth, in
her steady gray eyes, her proud
nose which dominated her features
without dwarfing them.
Her feet sat solidly on the pol
lshed floor; her clothes, well-made
and not cheap, fitted her muscular
body, forsaking style for utility. Her
chest was deep and her thighs stur-
dy, but with all this anchored sta
bility she was now one quivering
tumult of outraged nerves.
A man had asked her to marry
him and in sudden wrath, half
shame and half CONSERVATION, she
had put him out of her house. Now
she could hear his car roaring
around her drive, swerving past the
rhododendrons and the tall stone
posts, gathering speed as it swooped
into the descending road.
Wallace Withers, whom she had
known all her life-going home in a
rage because she had slammed her
door upon him.
Pulling herself together with some
difficulty Virgie went to the mirror,
Strengthened her collar, looked her
self coldly up and down.
Her feet wavering slightly, her
head spinning, she stumbled into her
library, which she still stubbornly
called the 'sitting-room." A log fire
burned there; there were books in
autumnal colors along two walls
and, over the stone mantel, an en-
larged photograph of a middle-aged
man with an alert, nervous face,
black hair, and cool, calculating
blue eyes.
Virgie looked up at this portrait,
swallowed grimly and achingly,
frightened her cold hands into fists.
You missed lot, David" she
said aloud. 81 reckon it's just as
we'll"
A door at the far end of the room
moved Slightly. Virgie scowled at it.
Come along in, Lossie," she
snapped. IF you want to listen,
come in where you won't miss any,
thing!"
A girl with dull face and brassy
hair waved stiffiy slid into the room.
II heard you talkin'-I thought
maybe you was calm me?"
You heard me all right" Virgie
was grim. Il suppose you heard
Mr.. Withers, too? Listen to me, Los
sic Wilson-if you drop a word
around Marian, you're fired-you
hear me?"
"Yes'm. I wouldn't say anything
for nothing, Mis- Morgan. l didn't
hear real good, anyhow. You want
anything, Mis- Morgan?"
Yes. Heat up the coffee-pot. You
haven't washed it, l know. Bring
me cup of coffee-strong-and no
sugar. Is Marian in YETI"
Nom, she amt yet. She went to
the second show, maybe"
Virgie wandered to the window
uneasily. ITS starting to sleet
again. She's got no business driv-
ing that car up this mountain in a
storm"
s'm-but she will though. It
amt any use saying anything to
her."
The coffee was hot and black and,
warmed by it, Virgie Morgan re-
Taxed little. Her anger had turned
chill, stiffened to self-scorn. She
had let herself get out of control.
She had made Wallace Withers mad.
That he had made her fighting mad,
also, did not excuse her.
She had known, she realized now,
what was working in Wallace With
ers' mind for more than a year. She
had known when she had gone to
his brick mouse up the river, at the
time of his wife's death. She had
carried hot homemade bread and
baked ham; she had gone into the
Withers' kitchen and supervised the
excited, whispering women there,
had made coffee for Wallace With
ers and prepared his supper.
With his wife lying stony dead and
cancer-yellowed, laid out in her best
gray silk, Wallace had looked at Vir-
gle then with approval and thought
full speculation in his slow, drab
eyes.
A rich man, careful man, a man
who lusted for power; she knew
now that she had seen then the birth
of an idea in Wallace Withers' mind,
over that hot meal, that cup of cof-
fee.
And tonight, here by her pleasant
fire the idea had emerged, full
grown, ruthlessly practical, dressed