"Was
that the lad's name?"
"Sure, and didn't ye know him?"
"No; I noticed the '7' on his hat, of course, but never asked any
questions, for his face was strange. I didn't know. The name, when
you just spoke it, struck me rather queer. I--I used to know a Brant
in the Seventh, but he was much older; it was not this man."
She answered something, lingering for a moment at the door, but he made
no response, and she passed out silently, leaving him staring moodily
through the open window, his eyes appearing glazed and sightless.
Glencaid, like most mining towns of its class, was dull and dead enough
during the hours of daylight. It was not until after darkness fell
that it awoke from its somnolence, when the scattered miners came
swarming down from out the surrounding hills and turned into a noisy,
restless playground the single narrow, irregular street. Then it
suddenly became a mad commixture of Babel and hell. At this hour
nothing living moved within range of the watcher's vision except a
vagrant dog; the heat haze hung along the near-by slopes, while a
little spiral of dust rose lazily from the deserted road.
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