"Well, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. I'd better wait till I see whether it will or not before I tell you." He stood and smiled at Marley a moment, and then said: "You wait here." And he turned and left the office. Marley watched Powell's fine figure as he walked across the street toward the Court House, a great love of the man surging within him. He felt secure and safe; a new warmth spread through him. At the door of the Court House Marley saw him stop and shake hands with Garver, the sheriff. The two talked a moment, then turned and went down toward the big iron gate in Main Street, and disappeared. Marley waited until noon and then he went home to his dinner. He returned, but Powell did not come back to the office all the afternoon. CHAPTER XVII THE COUNTY FAIR Marley did not see Wade Powell again for four days; a Sunday intervened, and Powell did not come back to the office until Monday morning. He came in with a solemn air upon him, and a new dignity that made impressive the seriousness with which he set to work at the pile of papers on his desk, as if he were beginning a new week with new resolutions. He was freshly shaved, and his hair had been cut; it was shorter at the sides and, against his rough sunburnt neck, showed an edge of clean white skin. His newly cropped hair gave him a strange, brisk appearance; his black clothes were brushed, his linen fresh. He spoke to Marley but a few times and then from the distant altitude of his new dignity. Once he sent Marley on an errand to Snider's drug store to buy a large blank book; he said he was going to keep an office docket after that. He worked on his new docket half the morning, then he carried the docket and the bundle of papers over to Marley's table, flung them down and asked Marley if he would not continue the work for him. He explained the system he had devised for keeping a record of his cases; it was intricate and complete, but in many of his cases the numbers and in some instances the names of opposing parties were missing; Powell told Marley to go over to the Court House and get the missing data from the clerk. "I've got to go out for a while," Powell explained. Then he hurried away; he seemed to be glad to escape from the office and the drudgery of the task he had set for himself.