"I doubt if he lasts the day out."
Kate frowned when she recognized Mrs. Taylor. They passed occasionally on the road to Prouty, but always without speaking. Kate never had forgiven the affront at the Prouty House, while Mrs. Taylor preserved her uncompromising attitude towards "rough characters."
Mrs. Taylor looked like a grenadier in a long snuff-brown coat and jaunty sailor hat as she descended from the buckboard without using the step. The benign cow-like complacency of her face always had irritated Kate, and now, as she advanced with the air of a great lady slumming, Kate felt herself tingling.
"How do you do, my dear?" She extended a large hand with a brown cotton glove upon it.
Kate's hand remained at her side, as she said coldly: "How do you do, Mrs. Taylor?"
Mrs. Taylor's manner said that it was the gracious act of an unsullied woman extending a hand to a fallen sister when she laid her brown cotton paw upon Kate's arm and quavered pityingly: "You po-oo-or soul!"
"You stupid woman!" Kate's eyes at the moment looked like steel points emitting sparks.
Mrs. Taylor drew herself up haughtily and was about to retort, but thought better of it. Instead, she declared with noble magnanimity: "I am not angery. I have not been angery in thirty years. You are very rude, but I can rise above it and forgive you, because I realize you've had no raising."
"I hope," said Kate hotly, "that you realize also that you are not here by my invitation."
Mrs. Taylor looked as if she was not only about to forget that she was a saint but a lady, while Teeters had a sensation of being rent by feline claws.
It seemed like a direct intervention of Providence when Bowers hung out of the door of the wagon and called excitedly: "I believe he's goin'!"
The exigencies of the moment, and curiosity, combined to make Mrs. Taylor overlook temporarily that she had been insulted, and she hastened with Teeters to the dying man's side.
Emaciated, yellow, Mullendore was lying with closed eyes when they entered.
"Say, feller--" said Teeters, hoping to rouse him.
Only Mullendore's faint breathing told them that he was living.
Mrs. Taylor laid her hand upon his damp forehead and withdrew it quickly.
"The po-oo-or soul! I'll sing something."
"It might help to git ong rapport with the sperrits," agreed Teeters.
As Mrs. Taylor droned a familiar camp-meeting hymn, Mullendore opened his eyes and looked at her dully: "Who are you?" he whispered.
Mrs. Taylor quavered, "I've come to bring the Truth to you."
Mullendore looked at her, uncomprehending.