The door closed behind them, leaving Harkutt alone with his importunate
intruder. Possibly his resentment at his customers' selfish abandonment
of him at this moment developed a vague spirit of opposition to them and
mitigated his feeling towards 'Lige. He groped his way to the counter,
struck a match, and lit a candle. Its feeble rays faintly illuminated
the pale, drawn face of the applicant, set in a tangle of wet, unkempt,
party-colored hair. It was not the face of an ordinary drunkard;
although tremulous and sensitive from some artificial excitement, there
was no ENGORGEMENT or congestion in the features or complexion, albeit
they were morbid and unhealthy. The expression was of a suffering that
was as much mental as physical, and yet in some vague way appeared
unmeaning--and unheroic.

"I want to see you about selling my place on the creek. I want you to
take it off my hands for a bargain. I want to get quit of it, at once,
for just enough to take me out o' this. I don't want any profit; only
money enough to get away." His utterance, which had a certain kind of
cultivation, here grew thick and harsh again, and he looked eagerly at
the bottle which stood on the counter.

"Look here, 'Lige," said Harkutt, not unkindly. "It's too late to do
anythin' tonight. You come in to-morrow." He would have added "when
you're sober," but for a trader's sense of politeness to a possible
customer, and probably some doubt of the man's actual condition.

"God knows where or what I may be tomorrow! It would kill me to go back
and spend another night as the last, if I don't kill myself on the way
to do it."