We were all Virginians or Kentuckians
at the Gap, and Grayson was a
Virginian. You might have guessed
that he was a Southerner from his voice
and from the way he spoke of women
--but no more. Otherwise, he might
have been a Moor, except for his color,
which was about the only racial
characteristic he had. He had been educated
abroad and, after the English habit, had
travelled everywhere. And yet I can
imagine no more lonely way between
the eternities than the path Grayson
trod alone.
He came to the Gap in the early
days, and just why he came I never
knew. He had studied the iron question
a long time, he told me, and what
I thought reckless speculation was, it
seems, deliberate judgment to him. His
money ``in the dirt,'' as the phrase was,
Grayson got him a horse and rode the
hills and waited. He was intimate with
nobody. Occasionally he would play
poker with us and sometimes he drank
a good deal, but liquor never loosed his
tongue. At poker his face told as little
as the back of his cards, and he won more
than admiration--even from the Kentuckians,
who are artists at the game;
but the money went from a free hand,
and, after a diversion like this, he was
apt to be moody and to keep more to
himself than ever.
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