He followed by turn an old rutted postroad and faint, forest trails, and shortened distances by breaking through the trackless underbrush, watching subconsciously for rattlesnakes. The sun slowly declined, its rays fell diagonally, lengthening, through the trees; in a glade the air seemed filled with gold dust; the sky burned in a single flame of apricot. The air, rather than grow dark, appeared to thicken with raw color, with mauve and ultramarine, silver and cinnabar. When he arrived at the little, deeply-grassed plain that held Sprucesap, it was bathed in a flaring after-glow, a magical, floating light. A double row of board structures faced each other across a street of raw clay and narrow, wood sidewalks; they were, for the most part, unpainted, hasty erections of a single story. A building labelled the Steel Spud Hotel was more pretentious. The others were eating houses, stores with small windows filled with a threatening miscellany--revolvers, leather slung shots and brass knuckles, besides lumbering boots, gaudy Mackinaw jackets, gleaming knives and ammunition. Beyond the street a single car track ran precariously over the green, and ended abruptly, without roadbed or visible terminus; at one side was a rude platform, on the other a great pile of bark, rotting from long exposure--the result of some artificial condition of the market, the spite of powerful and vindictive merchants. A second hotel stood alone, beyond the car tracks, and there Gordon removed the marks of his journey, resettled his collar and the resplendent tie. He felt in his coat for the revolver, in order to transfer it to a more convenient pocket.... Its bulk, apparently, evaded his fingers. His search quickened--it had gone! He had lost it somewhere on his long, devious passage of Cheap Mountain. Without it he would be in the power of any spindling gambler who faced a dishonest ace. It would be necessary to procure another weapon before proceeding with his purpose ... ten dollars, perhaps fifteen; revolvers were highly priced in the turbulent distant wild. Could he afford to lose that amount from his slender store of dollars? Intact it was absurdly inadequate. He debated the choice--on one hand the peril of gambling unarmed, on the other his desperate need for money. Once more he considered Clare: in the end his arrogance of manhood brought a decision--he would preserve the money for play. He was, he thought insolently of himself, quick as a copperhead snake, and as dangerous. After supper he sat on the porch, twisting and consuming cigarettes, waiting for the night. X