Now his eyes roamed with relief across the valley. Heat waves blurred the hollow and pushed Sour Creek away until it seemed a river of mist—yellow mist. He raised his attention out of that sweltering hollow to the cool, blue, mighty mountains—his country!
Presently he had forgotten all this. He settled his hat on the back of his head and began to kick a stone before him, following it aimlessly.
Someone was humming close to him, and he turned sharply to see Sally Bent go by, carrying a bucket. She smiled generously, and though he knew that she doubtless hated him in her heart and smiled for a purpose, he had to reply with a perfunctory grin. He stalked after her to the little leaping creek and dipped out a full bucket.
"Thanks," said Sally, wantonly meeting his eye.
As well try to soften a sphinx. Sinclair carried the dripping bucket on the side nearest the girl and thereby gained valuable distance. "I'm mighty glad it's you and not one of the rest," confided Sally, still smiling firmly up to him.
He avoided that appeal with a grunt.
"Like Sandersen, say," went on the girl.
"Why not him?"
"He's a bad hombre," said the girl. "Hate to have Jig in his hands.With you it's different."
Sinclair waited until he had put down the bucket in the kitchen. Then he faced Sally thoughtfully.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you're reasonable."
"Did Jig tell you that?"
"And a pile more. Jig says you're a pretty fine sort. That's his words."
The cowpuncher caressed the butt of his gun with his fingertips, his habitual gesture when in doubt.
"Lady," he said at length, "suppose I cut this short? You think I ain't going to keep Cold Feet here till the sheriff comes for him?"
"You see what it would mean?" she asked eagerly. "It wouldn't be a fair trial. You couldn't get a fair jury for Jig around Sour Creek and Woodville. They hate him—all the young men do. D'you know why? Simply because he's different! Simply because—"
"Because all the girls are pretty fond of him, eh?"
"You can put it that way if you want," she answered steadily enough, though she flushed under his stare. Then: "you'll keep that in mind, and you're man enough to do what you think is right, ain't you, Mr. Sinclair?"
He shifted away from the hand which was moving toward him.
"I'll tell you what," he answered. "I'm man enough to be afraid of a girl like you, Sally Bent."
Then he saw her head fall in despair, as he turned away. When he reached the shimmering heat of the outdoors again, he was feeling like a murderer. His reason told him that Cold Feet was "yaller," not worth saving. His reason told him that he could save Jig only by a confession that would drive him, Sinclair, away from Sour Creek and his destined victim, Sandersen. Or he could save Jig by violating the law, and that also would drive him from Sour Creek and Sandersen.
Suddenly he halted in the midst of his pacing to and fro. Why was he turning these alternatives back and forth in his mind? Because, he understood all at once, he had subconsciously determined that Cold Feet must not die!
The face of his brother rose up and looked into his eyes. That was the friend of whom he would not speak to Jig, brother and friend at once. And as surely as ever ghost called to living man, that face demanded the death of Sandersen. He blinked the vision away.
"Iamgoing nutty," muttered Sinclair. "Whether Sandersen lives or dies, Jig ain't going to dance at a rope's end!"
Presently Sally called him in to lunch, and Riley ate halfheartedly. All during the meal neither Sally nor John Gaspar had more than a word for him, while they talked steadily together. They seemed to understand each other so well that he felt a hidden insult in it.
Once or twice he made a heavy attempt to enter the conversation, always addressing his remarks to Sally Bent. He was received graciously, but his remarks always fell dead, and a moment later Cold Feet had picked up the frayed ends of his own talk and won the entire attention of Sally. Riley was beginning to understand why the youth of that district detested Cold Feet.
"Always takes some soft-handed dude to make a winning with a fool girl," he comforted himself.
He expected the arrival of Jerry Bent before nightfall, and with that arrival, perhaps, there would be a new sort of attack on him. Sally and Cold Feet were trying persuasion, but they might encourage Jerry Bent to attempt physical force. With all his heart Riley Sinclair hoped so. He had a peculiar desire to do something significant for the eyes of both Sally and Jig.
But nightfall came, and then supper, and still no Jerry appeared. Afterward, Sinclair made ready to sleep in Jig's room. Cold Feet offered him the couch.
"Beds and me don't hitch" declared Riley, throwing two or three of the rugs together. "I ain't particular partial to a floor, neither, but these here rugs will give it a sort of a ground softness."
He sat cross-legged on the low pile of rugs, while he pulled off his boots and smoked his good-night cigarette. Jig coiled up in a big chair, while he studied his jailer.
"But how can you go to bed so early?" he asked.
"Early? It ain't early. Sun's down, ain't it? Why do they bring on night, except for folks to go to sleep?"
"For my part the best part of the day generally begins when the sun goes down."
With patient contempt Riley considered John Gaspar. "You look kind of that way," he decided aloud. "Pale and not much good with your shoulders. Now, what d'you most generally do with your time in the evening?"
"Why—talk."
"Talk? Huh! A fine way of wasting time for a growed-up man."
"And I read, you know."
"I can see by the looks of them shelves that you do. How many of them books might you have read, Jig?"
"All of them."
"I ask you, man to man, ain't they mostly somebody's idea of what life is?"
"I suppose that's a short way of putting it."
"And I ask you ag'in, what's better to take a secondhand hunch out of what somebody else thinks life might be, or to go out and do some living on your own hook?"
Cold Feet had been smiling faintly up to this point, as though he had many things in reserve which might be said at need. Now his smile disappeared.
"Perhaps you're right."
"And maybe I ain't." Sinclair brushed the entire argument away into a thin mist of smoke. "Now, look here, Cold Feet, I'm about to go to sleep, and when I sleep, I sure sleep sound, taking it by and large. They's times when I don't more'n close one eye all night, and they's times when you'd have to pull my eyes open, one by one, to wake me up. Understand? I'm going to sleep the second way tonight. About eight hours of the soundest sleep you ever heard tell of."
Jig considered him gravely.
"I'm afraid," he answered, "that I won't sleep nearly as well."
Riley Sinclair smiled. "Wouldn't be no ways nacheral for you to do much sleeping," he agreed. "Take a gent that's in danger of having his neck stretched, like you, and most generally he don't do much sleeping. He lies around awake, cussing his luck, I s'pose. Take you, now, Cold Feet, and I s'pose you'll be figuring on how far a hoss could carry you in the eight hours that I'll be sleeping. Eh?"
There was a suggestive lift of the eyebrows, as he spoke, but before Jig had a chance to study his face, he had turned and wrapped himself in one of the rugs. He lay perfectly still, stretched on one side, with his back turned to Jig. He stirred neither hand nor foot.
Outside, a door slammed heavily; Cold Feet heard the heavy voice of Jerry Bent and the beat of his heels across the floor. In spite of those noises Riley Sinclair was presently sound asleep, as he had promised. Gaspar knew it by the rise and fall of the arm which lay along Sinclair's side, also by the sound of his breathing.
Cold Feet went to the window and looked out on the mountains, black and huge, with a faint shimmer of snow on the farthest summits. At the very thought of trying to escape into that wilderness and wandering alone among the peaks, he shuddered. He came back and studied the sleeper. Something about the nonchalance with which Sinclair had gone to sleep under the very eye of his prisoner affected John Gaspar strangely. Doubtless it was sheer contempt for the man he was guarding. And, indeed, something assured Jig that, no matter how well he employed the next eight hours in putting a great distance between himself and Sour Creek, the tireless riding of Sinclair would more than make up the distance.
Gaspar went to the door, then turned sharply and glanced over his shoulder at the sleeper; but the eyes of Sinclair were still closed, and his regular breathing continued. Jig turned the knob cautiously and slipped out into the living room.
Jerry and Sally beckoned instantly to him from the far side of the room. The beauty of the family had descended upon Sally alone. Jerry was a swart-skinned, squat, bow-legged, efficient cowpuncher. He now ambled awkwardly to meet John Gaspar.
"Are you all set?" he asked.
"For what?"
"To start on the trail!" exclaimed Jerry. "What else? Ain't Sinclair asleep?"
"How d'you know?"
"I listened at the door and heard his breathing a long time ago.Thought you'd never come out."
Sally Bent was already on the other side of Gaspar, drawing him toward the door.
"You can have my hoss, Jig," she offered. "Meg is sure as sin in the mountains. You won't have nothing to fear on the worst trail they is."
"Not a thing," asserted Jerry.
They half led and half dragged Cold Feet to the door.
"I'll show you the best way. You see them two peaks yonder, like a pair of mule's ears? You start—"
"I don't know," said Jig. "It seems very difficult, even to think of riding alone through those mountains."
Sally was white with fear. "You ain't going to throw away this chance, Jig? It'll mean hanging sure, if you don't run now. Ask Jerry what they're saying in Sour Creek tonight?"
Jerry volunteered the information. "They're all wondering why you wasn't strung up today, when they got so much evidence agin' you. Also they're thinking that the boys played plumb foolish in turning you over to this stranger, Sinclair, to guard. But they're waiting for Sheriff Kern to come over from Woodville an' nab you in the morning. They's some that says that they won't wait, if it looks like the law is going to take too long to hang you. They'll get up a necktie party and break the jail and do their own hanging. I heard all them things and more, Jig."
John Gaspar looked uncertainly from one to the other of his friends.
"You'vegotto go!" cried Sally.
"I've got to go," admitted Cold Feet in a whisper.
"I've got Meg saddled for you already. She's plumb gentle."
"Just a minute. I've forgotten something."
"You don't mean you're going back into that room where Sinclair is?"
"I won't waken him. He's sleeping like the dead."
Jig turned away from them and hurried back to his room. Having opened and closed the door softly, he went to a chest of drawers near the window and fumbled in the half-light of the low-burning lamp. He slipped a small leather case into the breast pocket of his coat, and then stole back toward the door, as softly as before. With his hand on the knob, he paused and looked back. For all he knew, Sinclair might be really awake now, watching his quarry from beneath those heavy lashes, waiting until his prisoner should have made a definite attempt to escape.
And then the big man would rise to his feet as soon as the door was closed. The picture became startlingly real to John Gaspar. Sinclair would slip out that window, no doubt, and circle around toward the horse shed. There he would wait until his prisoner came out on Meg, and then without warning would come a shot, and there would be an end of Sinclair's trouble with his prisoner. Gaspar could easily attribute such cunning cruelty to Sinclair. And yet there was something untested, unprobed, different about the rangy fellow.
Whatever it was, it kept Gaspar staring down into the lean face of Sinclair for a long moment. Then he went resolutely back into the living room and faced Sally Bent; Jerry was already waiting outdoors.
"I'm not going," said Gaspar slowly. "I'll stay."
Sally cried out. "Oh, Jig, have you lost your nerve ag'in? Ain't you gotnocourage?"
The schoolteacher sighed. "I'm afraid not, Sally. I guess my only courage comes in waiting and seeing how things turn out."
He turned and went gloomily back to his room.
12
With the first brightness of dawn, Sinclair wakened even more suddenly that he had fallen asleep. There was no slow adjusting of himself to the requirements of the day. One prodigious stretching of the long arms, one great yawn, and he was as wide awake as he would be at noon. He jerked on his boots and rose, and not until he stood up, did he see John Gaspar asleep in the big chair, his head inclining to one side, the book half-fallen from his hand, and the lamp sputtering its last beside him. But instead of viewing the weary face with pity, Sinclair burst into sudden and amazed profanity.
The first jarring note brought Gaspar up and awake with a start, and he stared in astonishment at the uninterrupted flood which rippled from the lips of the cowpuncher. It concluded: "Still here! Of all the shorthorned fatheads that I ever seen, the worst is this Gaspar—this Jig—this Cold Feet. Say, man, ain't you got no spirit at all?"
"What do you mean?" asked Gaspar. "Still here? Of course I'm still here! Did you expect me to escape?"
Sinclair flung himself into a chair, speechless with rage and disgust.
"Did you think I was joking when I told you I was going to sleep eight hours without waking up?"
"It might very well have been a trap, you know."
Sinclair groaned. "Son, they ain't any man in the world that'll tell you that Riley Sinclair sets his traps for birds that ain't got their stiff feathers growed yet. Trap for you? What in thunder should I want you for, eh?"
He strode to the window, still groaning.
"There's where you'd ought to be, over yonder behind them mule ears. They'd never catch you in a thousand years with that start. Eight hours start! As good as have eight years, kid—just as good. And you've throwed that chance away!"
He turned and stared mournfully at the schoolteacher.
"It ain't no use," he said sadly. "I see it all now. You was cut out to end in a rope collar."
Not another word could be pried from his set lips during breakfast, a gloomy meal to which Sally Bent came with red eyes, and Jerry Bent sullenly, with black looks at Sinclair. Jig was the cheeriest one of the party. That cheer at last brought another explosion from Sinclair. They stood in front of the house, watching a horseman wind his way up the road through the hills.
"It's Sheriff Kern," said Jerry Bent. "I can tell by the way he rides, sort of slanting. It's Kern, right enough."
Sally Bent choked, but Jig continued to hum softly.
"Singin'?" asked Riley Sinclair suddenly. "Ain't you no more worried than that?"
The voice of the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water."I think you'll bring me out of the trouble safely enough, Mr.Sinclair."
"Mr. Sinclair'll see you damned before he lifts a hand for you!" Riley retorted savagely.
He strode to his horse and expended his wrath by viciously jerking at the cinches, until the mustang groaned. Sheriff Kern came suddenly into clear view around the last turn and rode quickly up to them, a very short man, muscular, sweaty. He always gave the impression that he had been working ceaselessly for a week, and certainly he found time to shave only once in ten days. Dense bristle clouded the lower features of his face. He was a taciturn man. His greetings took the form of a single grunt. He took possession of John Gaspar with a single glance that sent the latter nervously toward his saddle horse.
"I see you got this party all ready for me," said the sheriff more amiably to Riley Sinclair, who was watching in disgust the clumsy method of Jig's mounting. "You're Sinclair, I guess?"
"I'm Sinclair, sheriff."
They shook hands.
"Nice bit of work you done for me, Sinclair, keeping the boys from stringing up Jig, yonder. These here lynchings don't set none too well on the reputation of a sheriff. I guess we're ready to start. S'long Sally—Jerry. Are you riding our way, Sinclair?"
"I thought I'd happen along. Ain't never seen Woodville yet."
"Glad to have you. But they ain't much to see unless you look twice at the same thing."
They started down the trail three abreast.
"Ride on ahead," commanded Sinclair to Jig. "We don't want you riding in the same line with men. Git on ahead!"
John Gaspar obeyed that brutal order with bowed head. He rodelistlessly, with loose rein, letting the pony pick its own way. OnceSinclair looked back to Sally Bent, weeping in the arms of her brother.Again his face grew black.
"And yet," confided the sheriff softly, "I ain't never heard no trouble about this Gaspar before."
"He's poison," declared Sinclair bitterly, and he raised his voice that it would unmistakably carry to the shrinking figure before them. "He's such a yaller-hearted skunk, sheriff, that it makes me ashamed of bein' a man!"
"They's only one thing I misdoubt," said the sheriff. "How'd that sort of a gent ever get the nerve to murder a man like Quade? Quade wasn't no tenderfoot, and he could shoot a bit, besides."
"Speaking personal, sheriff, I don't think he done it, now I've had a chance to go over the evidence."
"Maybe he didn't, but most like he'll hang for it. The boys is dead set agin' him. First, he's a dude; second, he's a coward. Sour Creek and Woodville wasn't never cut out for that sort. They ain't wanted around."
That speech made Riley Sinclair profoundly thoughtful. He had known well enough before this that there were small chances of Jig escaping from the damning judgment of twelve of these cowpunchers. The statement of the sheriff made the belief a fact. The death sentence of Jig was pronounced the moment the doors of the jail at Woodville clanged upon him.
They struck the trail to Sour Creek and almost immediately swung off on a branch which led south and west, in the opposite direction from the creek. It was a day of high-driving clouds, thin and fleecy, so that they merely filtered the sunlight and turned it into a haze without decreasing the heat perceptibly, and that heat grew until it became difficult to look down at the blazing sand.
Now the trail climbed among broken hills until they reached a summit. From that point on, now and again the road elbowed into view of a wide plain, and in the center of the plain there was a diminutive dump of buildings.
"Woodville," said the sheriff. "Hey, you, Jig, hustle that hoss along!"
Obediently the drooping Gaspar spurred his horse. The animal broke into a gallop that set Gaspar jolting in the seat, with wildly flopping elbows.
"Look at that," said Sinclair. "Would you ever think that men could be born as awkward as that? Would you ever think that men would be born that didn't have no use in the world?"
"He ain't altogether useless," decided the sheriff. "Seems as how he's done noble in the school. Takes on with the little boys and girls most amazing, and he knows how to keep even the eighth graders interested. But what can you expect of a gent that ain't got no more pride than to be a schoolteacher, eh?"
Sinclair shook his head.
The trail drifted downward now less brokenly, and Woodville came into view. It was a wretched town in a wretched landscape, far different from the wild hills and the rich plowed grounds around Sour Creek. All that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since burned away to drab yellows and browns. A horrible place to die in, Sinclair thought.
"Speaking of hosses, that's a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff."
"Rode him for five years," said the sheriff. "Raised him and busted him and trained him all by myself. Ain't nobody but me ever rode him. He can go so soft-footed he wouldn't bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose and run like the wind. They ain't no better hoss than this that's come under my eye, Sinclair. Are you much on the points of a hoss?"
"I use hosses—I don't love 'em," said Sinclair gloomily. "But I can read the points tolerable."
The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly. "So you don't love hosses, eh?" he said, returning distantly to the subject. It was easy to see where his own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its master spoke.
"Sheriff," explained Sinclair, "I'm a single-shot gent. I don't aim to have no scatter fire in what I like. They's only one man that I ever called friend, they's only one place that I ever called home—the mountains, yonder—and they's only one hoss that I ever took to much. I raised Molly up by hand, you might say. She was ugly as sin, but they wasn't nothing she couldn't do—nothing!" He paused. "Sheriff, I used to talk to that hoss!"
The sheriff was greatly moved. "What became of her?" he asked softly.
"I took after a gent once. He couldn't hit me, but he put a slug through Molly."
"What became of the gent?" asked the sheriff still more softly.
"He died just a little later. Just how I ain't prepared to state."
"Good!" said the sheriff. He actually smiled in the pleasure of newfound kinship. "You and me would get on proper, Sinclair."
"Most like."
"This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me touching a rein. Knows direction like a wolf."
"Could you guide her with your knees?"
"Sure."
"And she's plumb safe with you?"
"Sure."
"I know a gent once that said he'd trust himself tied hand and foot on his hoss."
"That goes for me and my hoss, too, Sinclair."
"Well, then, just shove up them hands, sheriff!"
The sheriff blinked, as the sun flashed on the revolver in the steady hand of Sinclair. There was a significant little jerking up of the revolver. Each time the muzzle stirred, the hands of the sheriff jumped higher and higher until his arms were stiffly stretched. Gaspar had halted his horse and looked back in amazement.
"I hate to do it," declared Sinclair. "Right off I sort of took to you, sheriff. But this has got to be done."
"Sinclair, have you done much thinking before you figured this all out?"
"Enough! If I knowed you one shade better, sheriff, I'd take your word that you'd ride on into Woodville, good and slow, and not start no pursuit. But I don't know you that well. I got to tie you on the back of that steady old hoss of yours and turn you loose. We need that much start."
He dismounted, still keeping careful aim, took the rope coiled beside the sheriff's own saddle horn and began a swift and sure process of tying. He worked deftly, without undue fear or haste, and Gaspar came back to look on with scared eyes.
"You're a fool, Sinclair," murmured the sheriff. "You'll never get shut of me. I'll foller you till I drop dead. I'll never forget you. Change your mind now, and we'll say nothing has happened. But if you keep on, you're done for as sure as my name is Kern. Take you by yourself, and you'd be a handful to catch. But two is easier than one, and, when one of them two is a deadweight like Gaspar, they ain't nothing to it."
He finished his appeal completely trussed.
"I ain't tied you on the hoss," said Sinclair. "Take note of that. AlsoI'm leaving you your guns, sheriff."
"I hope you'll have a chance to see 'em come out of the holster later on, Sinclair."
The cowpuncher took no notice of this bitterness. Gaspar, who looked on, was astonished by a certain deferential politeness on the part of the big cowpuncher.
"Speaking personal, I hope I don't never have no trouble with you, sheriff. I like you, understand?"
"Have your little joke, Sinclair!"
"I mean it. I know I'm usin' you like a skunk. But I got a special need, and I can't take no chances. Sheriff, I tell you out of my heart that I'm sorry! Will you believe me?"
The sheriff smiled. "The same as you'll believe me when we change parts, Sinclair."
The big man sighed. "I s'pose it's got to be that way," he said. "But if you come for me, Kern, come all primed for action. It'll be a hard trail."
"That's my specialty."
"Well, sheriff, s'long—and good luck!"
The sheriff nodded. "Thanks!"
Pressing his horse with his knees, Kern started down the trail at a slow canter. Sinclair followed the retiring figure, nodding with admiration at the skill with which the sheriff kept his mount under control, merely by power of voice. Presently the latter turned a corner of the trail and was out of sight.
"But—I knew—I knew!" exclaimed John Gaspar. "Only, why did you let him go on into town?" The cold glance of Sinclair rested on his companion. "What would you have done?"
"Tied him up and left him here."
"I think you would—to die in the sun!" He swung up into his saddle. "Now, Gaspar, we've started on what's like to prove the last trail for both of us, understand? By night we'll both be outlawed. They'll have a price on us, and long before night, Kern will be after us. For the first time in your soft-hearted life you've got to work, and you've got to fight."
"I'll do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
"Bah! Save your talk. Talk's dirt cheap."
"I only ask one thing. Why have you done it?"
"Because, you fool, I killed Quade!"
13
From the first there was no thought in the sheriff's mind of riding straight into Woodville, trussed and helpless as he was. Woodville respected him, and the whole district was proud of its sheriff. He knew that five minutes of laughter can blast the finest reputation that was ever built by a lifetime of hard labor. He knew the very faces of the men who would never let the story die, of how the sheriff came into town, not only without his prisoner, but tied hand and foot, helpless in the saddle.
Without his prisoner!
Never before in his twenty years as sheriff had a criminal escaped from his hands. Many a time they had tried, and on those occasions he had brought back a dead body for the hand of the law.
This time he had ample excuse. Any man in the world might admit that he was helpless when such a fellow as Riley Sinclair took him by surprise. He knew Sinclair well by reputation, and he respected all that he had heard.
No matter for that. The fact remained that his unbroken string of successes was interrupted. Perhaps Woodville would explain his failure away. No doubt some of the men knew of Sinclair and would not wonder. They would stand up doughtily for the prowess of their sheriff. Yet the fact held that he had failed. It was a moral defeat more than anything else.
His mind was made up to remain in the mountains until he starved, or until he had removed those shameful ropes—his own rope! At that thought he writhed again. But here an arroyo opening in the ragged wall of a cliff caught his eye. He turned his horse into it and continued on his way until he saw a projecting rock with a ragged edge, left where a great fragment had recently fallen away.
Here he found it strangely awkward and even perilous to dismount without his hands to balance his weight, as he shifted out of the stirrups. In spite of his care, he stumbled over a loose rock as he struck the ground and rolled flat on his back. He got up, grinding his teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it gave at the first friction.
Beads of moisture started out on the sheriff's forehead. Hastily he started on down the arroyo and found another rock, with an edge not nearly so favorable in appearance, but this time it was granite. He leaned his back against it and rubbed with a short shoulder motion until his arms ached, but it was a happy labor. He felt the rock edge taking hold of the ropes, fraying the strands to weakness, and then eating into them. It was very slow work!
The sun drifted up to noon, and still he was leaning against that rock, working patiently, with his head near to bursting, and perspiration, which he could not wipe away, running down to blind him. Finally, when his brain was beginning to reel with the heat, and his shoulders ached to numbness, the last strand parted. The sheriff dropped down to the ground to rest.
Presently he drew out his jackknife and methodically cut the remaining bonds. It came to him suddenly, as he stood up, that someone might have seen this singular performance and carried the tale away for future laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added power that would make such a pursuit rash beyond words.
A phrase which he had coined for the gossips of Woodville, came back into his mind. He was no longer as young as he once was, and even at his prime he shrewdly doubted his ability to cope with Riley Sinclair. With the weight of Gaspar thrown in, the thing became an impossibility. Gaspar might be a weakling, but a man who was capable of murder was always dangerous.
To have been thwarted once was shame enough, but he dared not risk two failures with one man. He must have help in plenty from Woodville, and, fate willing, he would one day have the pleasure of looking down into the dead face of Sinclair; one day have the unspeakable joy of seeing the slender form of Gaspar dangling from the end of a rope.
His mind was filled with the wicked pleasure of these pictures until he came suddenly upon Woodville. He drew his horse back to a dogtrot to enter the town.
It was a short street that led through Woodville, but, short though it was, the news that something was wrong with the sheriff reached the heart of the town before he did. Men were already pouring out on the veranda of the hotel.
"Where is he, sheriff?" was the greeting.
Never before had that question been asked. He switched to one side in his saddle and made the speech that startled the mind of Woodville for many a day.
"Boys, I've been double-crossed. Have any of you heard tell of RileySinclair?"
He waited apparently calm. Inwardly he was breathless with excitement, for according to the size of Riley's reputation as a formidable man would be the size of his disgrace. There was a brief pause. Old Shaw filled the gap, and he filled it to the complete satisfaction of the sheriff.
"Young Hopkins was figured for the hardest man up in Montana way," he said. "That was till Riley Sinclair beat him. What about Sinclair?"
"It was him that double-crossed me," said the sheriff, vastly relieved. "He come like a friend, stuck me up on the trail when I wasn't lookin' for no trouble, and he got away with Gaspar."
A chorus, astonished, eager. "What did he do it for?"
"No man'll ever know," said the sheriff.
"Why not?"
"Because Sinclair'll be dead before he has a chance to look a jury in the face."
There were more questions. The little crowd had got its breath again, and the words came in volleys. The sheriff cut sharply through the noise.
"Where's Bill Wood?"
"He's in town now."
"Charley, will you find Billy for me and ask him to slide over to my office? Thanks! Where's Arizona and Red Chalmers?"
"They went back to the ranch."
"Be a terrible big favor if you'd go out and try to find 'em for me, boys. Where's Joe Stockton?"
"Up to the Lewis place."
Old Shaw struck in: "You ain't makin' no mistake in picking the best you can get. You'll need 'em for this Riley Sinclair. I've heard tell about him. A pile!"
The very best that Woodville and its vicinity could offer, was indeed what the sheriff was selecting. Another man would have looked for numbers, but the sheriff knew well enough that numbers meant little speed, and speed was one of the main essentials for the task that lay before him. He knew each of the men he had named, and he had known them for years, with the exception of Arizona. But the latter, coming up from the southland, had swiftly proved his ability in many a brawl.
Bill Wood was a peerless trailer; Red Chalmers would, the sheriff felt, be one day a worthy aspirant for the office which he now held, and Red was the only man the sheriff felt who could succeed to that perilous office. As for Joe Stockton, he was distinctly bad medicine, but in a case like this, it might very well be that poison would be the antidote for poison. Of all the men the sheriff knew, Joe was the neatest hand with a gun. The trouble with Joe was that he appreciated his own ability and was fond of exhibiting his prowess.
Having sent out for his assistants on the chase, the sheriff retired to his office and set his affairs in order. There was not a great deal of paper work connected with his position; in twenty minutes he had cleared his desk, and, by the time he had finished this task, the first of his posse had sauntered into the doorway and stood leaning idly there, rolling a cigarette.
"Have a chair, Bill, will you?" said the sheriff. He tilted back in his own and tossed his heels to the top of his desk. "Getting sort of warm today, ain't it?"
Bill Wood had never seen the sheriff so cheerful. He sat down gingerly, knowing well that some task of great danger lay before them.
14
All that Gaspar dreaded in Riley Sinclair had come true. The schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode on in silence. Finally there was a stumble, and it seemed as if the words were jarred out from his lips, hitherto closely compressed: "Youkilled Quade!"
A scowl was his answer.
But he persisted in the inquiry with a sort of trembling curiosity, though he could see the angry emotions rise in Sinclair. The emotion of a murderer, perhaps?
"How?"
"With a gun, fool. How d'you think?"
Even that did not halt John Gaspar.
"Was it a fair fight?"
"Maybe—maybe not. It won't bring him back to life!"
Riley laughed with savage satisfaction. Gaspar watched him as a bird might watch a snake. He had heard tales of men who could find satisfaction in a murder, but he had never believed that a human being could actually gloat over his own savagery. He stared at Riley as if he were looking at a wild beast that must be placated.
Thereafter the talk was short. Now and again Sinclair gave some curt direction, but they put mile after mile behind them without a single phrase interchanged. Gaspar began to slump in the saddle. It brought a fierce rebuke from Sinclair.
"Straighten up. Put some of your weight in them stirrups. D'you think any hoss can buck up when it's carrying a pile of lead? Come alive!"
"It's the heat. It takes my strength," protested Gaspar.
"Curse you and your strength! I wouldn't trade all of you for one ear of the hoss you're riding. Do what I tell you!"
Without protest, without a flush of shame at this brutal abuse, John Gaspar attempted to obey. Then, as they topped a rise and reached a crest of a range of hills, Gaspar cried out in surprise. Sour Creek lay in the hollow beneath them.
"But you're running straight into the face of danger!"
"Don't tell me what I'm doing. I know maybe, all by myself!"
He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher winced.
"I've brought you in sight of the town so's you can go home."
"And be hanged?"
"You won't be hanged. I'll send a confession along with you. I've busted the law once. They're after me. They might as well have some more reasons for hitting my trail."
"But is it fair to you?" asked Gaspar, intertwining his nervous fingers.
Sinclair heard the words and eyed the gesture with unutterable disgust.At last he could speak.
"Fair?" he asked in scorn. "Since when have you been interested in playing fair? Takes a man with some nerve to play fair. You've spoiled my game, Gaspar. You've blocked me every way from the start, Cold Feet. I killed Quade, and they's another in Sour Creek that needs killing. That's something you can do. Go down and tell the sheriff when he happens along and show him my confession. Go down and tell him that I ain't running away—that I'm staying close, and that I'm going to nab my second man right under his nose. That'll give him something to think about."
He favored the schoolteacher with another black look and then swung out of the saddle, throwing his reins. He sat down with his back to a stunted tree. Gaspar dismounted likewise and hovered near, after the fashion of a man who is greatly worried. He watched while Sinclair deliberately took out an old stained envelope and the stub of a pencil and started to write. His brows knitted in pain with the effort. Suddenly Gaspar cried: "Don't do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
A slight lifting of Sinclair's heavy brows showed that he had heard, but he did not raise his head.
"Don't do what?"
"Don't try to kill that second man. Don't do it!"
Gaspar was rewarded with a sneer.
"Why not?"
The schoolteacher was desperately eager. His glance roved from the set face of the cowpuncher and through the scragged branches of the tree.
"You'll be damned for it—in your own mind. At heart you're a good man; I swear you are. And now you throw yourself away. Won't you try to open your mind and see this another way?"
"Not an inch. Kid, I gave my word for this to a dead man. I told you about a friend of mine?"
"I'll never forget."
"I gave my word to him, though he never heard it. If I have to wait fifty years I'll live long enough to kill the gent that's in Sour Creek now. The other day I had him under my gun. Think of it! I let him go!"
"And you'll let him go again. Sinclair, murder isn't in your nature.You're better than you think."
"Close up," growled the cowpuncher. "It ain't no Saturday night party for me to write. Keep still till I finish."
He resumed his labor of writing, drawing out each letter carefully. He had reached his signature when a low call from John Gaspar alarmed him. He looked up to find the little man pointing and staring up the trail. A horseman had just dropped over the crest and was winding leisurely down toward the plain below.
"We can get behind that knoll, perhaps, before he sees us," suggestedJig in a whisper. His suggestion met with no favor.
"You hear me talk, son," said Sinclair dryly. "That gent ain't carrying no guns, which means that he ain't on our trail, we being figured particularly desperate." He pointed this remark with a cold survey of the "desperate" Jig.
"But the best way to make danger follow you, Jig, is to run away from it. We stay put!"
He emphasized the remark by stretching luxuriously. Gaspar, however, did not seem to hear the last words. Something about the strange horseman had apparently riveted his interest. His last gesture was arrested halfway, and his color changed perceptibly.
"You stay, then, Mr. Sinclair," he said hurriedly. "I'm going to slip down the hill and—"
"You stay where you are!" cut in Sinclair.
"But I have a reason."
"Your reasons ain't no good. You stay put. You hear?"
It seemed that a torrent of explanation was about to pour from the lips of Jig, but he restrained himself, white of face, and sank down in the shade of the tree. There he stretched himself out hastily, with his hands cupped behind his head and his hat tilted so far down over his face that his entire head was hidden.
Sinclair followed these proceedings with a lackluster eye.
"When youdomove, Jig," he said, "you ain't so slow about it. That's pretty good faking, take it all in all. But why don't you want this strange gent to see your face?"
A slight shudder was the only reply; then Jig lay deadly still. In the meantime, before Sinclair could pursue his questions, the horseman was almost upon them. The cowpuncher regarded him with distinct approval. He was a man of the country, and he showed it. As his pony slouched down the slope, picking its way dexterously among the rocks, the rider met each jolt on the way with an easy swing of his shoulders, riding "straight up," just enough of his weight falling into his stirrups to break the jar on the back of the mustang.
The stranger drew up on the trail and swung the head of his horse in toward the tree, raising his hand in cavalier greeting. He was a sunbrowned fellow, as tall as Sinclair and more heavily built; as for his age, he seemed in that joyous prime of physical life, twenty-five. Sinclair nodded amiably.
"Might that be Sour Creek yonder?" asked the brown man.
"It might be. I reckon it is. Get down and rest your hoss."
"Thanks. Maybe I will."
He dropped to the ground and eased and stiffened his knees to get out the cramp of long riding. Off the horse he seemed even bigger and more capable than before, and now that he had come sufficiently close, so that the shadow from his sombrero's brim did not partially mask the upper part of his face, it seemed to Sinclair that about the eyes he was not nearly so prepossessing as around the clean-cut fighter's mouth and chin. The eyes were just a trifle too small, a trifle too close together. Yet on the whole he was a handsome fellow, as he pushed back his hat and wiped his forehead dry with a gay silk handkerchief.
Sinclair noted, furthermore, that the other had a proper cowpuncher's pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.
"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at the slim form of Jig.
"I reckon so."
"He done it almighty sudden. Thought I seen him up and walking around when I come over the hill."
"You got good eyes," said Sinclair, but he was instantly put on the defensive. He was heartily tired of Cold Feet Gaspar, his peculiarities, his whims, his weaknesses. But Cold Feet was his riding companion, and this was a stranger. He was thrown suddenly in the position of a defender of the helpless. "That's the way with these kids," he confided carelessly to the stranger. "They get out and ride fast for a couple of hours. Full of ambition, they are. But just when a growed man gets warmed up to his work; they're through. The kid's tired out."
"Come far?" asked the stranger.
"Tolerable long ways."
Sinclair disliked questions, and for each interrogation his opinion of the newcomer descended lower and lower. His own father had raised him on a stern pattern. "What you mean by questions, Riley? What you can't figure out with your own eyes and ears and good common hoss sense, most likely the other gent don't want you to know." Thereafter he had schooled himself in this particular point. He could suppress all curiosity and go six months without knowing more than the nickname of a boon companion.
"You come from Sour Creek, maybe?" went on the other.
"Sort of," replied Sinclair dryly.
His companion proceeded to dispense information on his own part so as to break the ice.
"I'm Jude Cartwright."
He paused significantly, but Sinclair's face was a blank.
"Glad to know you, Mr. Cartwright. Mostly they call me Long Riley."
"How are you, Riley?"
They shook hands heartily. Cartwright took a place on the ground, cross-legged and not far from Sinclair.
"I guess you don't know me?" he asked pointedly.
"I guess not."
"I'm of the Jesse Cartwright family."
Sinclair smiled blankly.
"Lucky Cartwright was my dad's name."
"That so?"
"I guess you ain't ever been up Montana way," said the stranger in disgust which he hardly veiled.
"Not much," said Sinclair blandly.
"I wished that I was back up there. This is a hole of a country down here."
"Hossflesh and time will take you back, I reckon."
"I reckon they will, when my job's done."
He turned a disparaging eye upon Sour Creek and its vicinity.
"Now, who would want to live in a town like that, can you tell me?"
It occurred very strongly to Riley Sinclair that Cartwright had not yet fully ascertained whether or not his companion came from that very town. And, although the day before, he had decided that Sour Creek was most undesirable and all that pertained to it, this unasked confirmation of his own opinion grated on his nerves.
"Well, they seems to be a few that gets along tolerable well in that town, partner."
"They's ten fools for one wise man," declared Cartwright sententiously.
Sinclair veiled his eyes with a downward glance. He dared not let the other see the cold gleam which he knew was coming into them. "I guess them's true words."
"Tolerable true," admitted Cartwright. "But I've rode a long ways, and this ain't much to find at the end of the trail."
"Maybe it'll pan out pretty well after all."
"If Sour Creek holds the person I'm after, I'll call it a good-paying game."
"I hope you find your friend," remarked Riley, with his deceptive softness of tone.
"Friend? Hell! And that's where this friend will wish me when I heave in sight. You can lay to that, and long odds!"
Sinclair waited, but the other changed his tack at once.
"If you ain't from Sour Creek, I guess you can't tell me what I want to know."
"Maybe not."
The brown man looked about him for diversion. Presently his eyes rested on Cold Feet, who had not stirred during all this interval.
"Son?"
"Nope."
"Kid brother?"
"Nope."
Cartwright frowned. "Not much of nothing, I figure," he said with marked insolence.
"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, and again he glanced down.
"He's slept long enough, I reckon," declared the brown man. "Let's have a look at him. Hey, kid!"
Cold Feet quivered, but seemed lost in a profound sleep. Cartwright reached for a small stone and juggled it in the palm of his hand.
"This'll surprise him," he chuckled.
"Better not," murmured Sinclair.
"Why not?"
"Might land on his face and hurt him."
"It won't hurt him bad. Besides, kids ought to learn not to sleep in the daytime. Ain't a good idea any way you look at it. Puts fog in the head."
He poised the stone.
"You might hit his eye, you see," said Sinclair.
"Leave that to me!"
But, as his arm twisted back for the throw, the hand of Sinclair flashed out and lean fingers crushed the wrist of Cartwright. Yet Sinclair's voice was still soft.
"Better not," he said.
They sat confronting each other for a moment. The stone dropped from the numbed fingers of Cartwright, and Sinclair released his wrist. Their characters were more easily read in the crisis. Cartwright's face flushed, and a purple vein ran down his forehead between the eyes. Sinclair turned pale. He seemed, indeed, almost afraid, and apparently Cartwright took his cue from the pallor.
"I see," he said sneeringly. "You got your guns on. Is that it?"
Sinclair slipped off the cartridge belt.
"Do I look better to you now?"
"A pile better," said Cartwright.
They rose, still confronting each other. It was strange how swiftly they had plunged into strife.
"I guess you'll be rolling along, Cartwright."
"Nope. I guess I like it tolerable well under this here tree."
"Except that I come here first, partner."
"And maybe you'll be the first to leave."
"I'd have to be persuaded a pile."
"How's this to start you along?"
He flicked the back of his hand across the lips of Sinclair, and then sprang back as far as his long legs would carry him. So doing, the first leap of Sinclair missed him, and when the cowpuncher turned he was met with a stunning blow on the side of the head.
At once the blind anger faded from the eyes of Riley. By the weight of that first blow he knew that he had encountered a worthy foeman, and by the position of Cartwright he could tell that he had met a confident one. The big fellow was perfectly poised, with his weight well back on his right foot, his left foot feeling his way over the rough ground as he advanced, always collected for a heavy blow, or for a leap in any direction. He carried his guard high, with apparent contempt for an attack on his body, after the manner of a practiced boxer.
As for Riley Sinclair, boxing was Greek to him. His battles had been those of bullets and sharp steel, or sudden, brutal fracas, where the rule was to strike with the first weapon that came to hand. This single encounter, hand to hand, was more or less of a novelty to him, but instead of abashing or cowing him, it merely brought to the surface all his coldness of mind, all of his cunning.
He circled Cartwright, his long arms dangling low, his step soft and quick as the stride of a great cat, and always there was thought in his face. One gained an impression that if ever he closed with his enemy the battle would end.
Apparently even Cartwright gained that impression. His own brute confidence of skill and power was suddenly tinged with doubt. Instead of waiting he led suddenly with his left, a blow that tilted the head of Sinclair back, and then sprang in with a crushing right. It was poor tactics, for half of a boxer's nice skill is lost in a plunging attack. The second blow shot humming past Sinclair as the latter dodged; and, before the brown man could recover his poise, the cowpuncher had dived in under the guarding arms.
A shrill cry rose from Cold Feet, a cry so sharp and shrill that it sent a chill down the back of Sinclair. For a moment he whirled with the weight of his struggling, cursing enemy, and then his right hand shot up over the shoulder of Cartwright and clutched his chin. With that leverage one convulsive jerk threw Cartwright heavily back; he rolled on his side, with Sinclair following like a wildcat.
But Cartwright as he fell had closed his fingers on a jagged little stone. Sinclair saw the blow coming, swerved from it, and straightway went mad. The brown man became a helpless bulk; the knee of Sinclair was planted on his shoulders, the talon fingers of Sinclair were buried in his throat.
Then—he saw it only dimly through his red anger and hardly felt it at all—Jig's hands were tearing at his wrists. He looked up in dull surprise into the face of John Gaspar.
"For heaven's sake," Jig was pleading, "stop!"
But what checked Sinclair was not the schoolteacher. Cartwright had been fighting with the fury of one who sees death only inches away. Suddenly he grew limp.
"You!" he cried. "You!"
To the astonishment of Sinclair the gaze of the beaten man rested directly upon the face of Jig.
"Yes," Gaspar admitted faintly, "it is I!"
Sinclair released his grip and stood back, while Cartwright, stumbling to his feet, stood wavering, breathing harshly and fingering his injured throat.
"I knew I'd find you," he said, "but I never dreamed I'd find you like this!"
"I know what you think," said Cold Feet, utterly colorless, "but you think wrong, Jude. You think entirely wrong!"
"You lie like a devil!"
"On my honor."
"Honor? You ain't got none! Honor!"
He flung himself into his saddle. "Now that I've located you, the next time I come it'll be with a gun."
He turned a convulsed face toward Sinclair.
"And that goes for you."
"Partner," said Riley Sinclair, "that's the best thing I've heard you say. Until then, so long!"
The other wrenched his horse about and went down the trail at a reckless gallop, plunging out of view around the first shoulder of a hill.
15
Sinclair watched him out of sight. He turned to find that Jig had slumped against the tree and stood with his arm thrown across his face. It reminded him, with a curious pang of mingled pity and disgust, of the way Gaspar had faced the masked men of Sour Creek's posse the day before. There was the same unmanly abnegation of the courage to meet danger and look it in the eye. Here, again, the schoolteacher was wincing from the very memory of a crisis.
"Look here!" exclaimed Sinclair. His contempt rang in his voice. "They ain't any danger now. Turn around here and buck up. Keep your chin high and look a man in the face, will you?"
Slowly the arm descended. He found himself looking into a white and tortured face. His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat. The very fact that the little man could endure such pain in silence, no matter what that pain might be, was something to his credit.
"Now come out with it, Gaspar. You double-crossed this Cartwright, eh?"
"Yes," whispered Jig.
"Will you tell me? Not that I make a business of prying into the affairs of other gents, but I figure I might be able to help you straighten things out with this Cartwright."
He made a wry face and then rubbed the side of his head where a lump was slowly growing.
"Of all the gents that I ever seen," said Sinclair softly, "I ain't never seen none that made me want to tangle with 'em so powerful bad. And of all the poisoned fatheads, all the mean, sneakin' advantage-takin' skunks that ever I run up again', this gent Cartwright is the worst. If his hide was worth a million an inch, I would have it. If he was to pay me a hundred thousand a day, I wouldn't be his pal for a minute." He paused. "Them, taking 'em by and large, is my sentiments about this here Cartwright. So open up and tell me what you done to him."
To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head. "I can't do it."
"H'm," said Sinclair, cut to the quick. "Can't you trust me with it, eh?"
"Ah," murmured Gaspar, "of all the men in the world, you're the one I'd tell it to most easily. But I can't—I can't."
"I don't care whether you tell me or not. Whatever you done, it must have been plumb bad if you can't even tell it to a gent that likes Cartwright like he likes poison."
"It was bad," said Jig slowly. "It was very bad—it was a sin. Until I die I can never repay him for what I have done."
Sinclair recovered some of his good nature at this outburst of self-accusation.
"I'll be hanged if I believe it," he declared bluntly. "Not a word of it! When you come right down to the point you'll find out that you ain't been half so bad as you think. The way I figure you is this, Jig. You ain't so bad, except that you ain't got no nerve. Was it a matter of losing your nerve that made Cartwright mad at you?"
"Yes. It was altogether that."
Sinclair sighed. "Too bad! I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it. They's a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was to be around you much, d'you know what I'd do?"
"What?"
"I'd try to plumb forget about this flaw of yours: That's a fact. But as far as Cartwright goes, to blazes with him! And that's where he's apt to wind up pronto if he's as good as his word and comes after me with a gun. In the meantime you grab your hoss, kid, and slide back into Sour Creek and show the boys this here confession I've written. You can add one thing. I didn't put it in because I knowed they wouldn't believe me. I killed Quade fair and square. I give him the first move for his gun, and then I beat him to the draw and killed him on an even break. That's the straight of it. I know they won't believe it. Matter of fact I'm saying it for you, Jig, more'n I am for them!"
It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face of the schoolteacher.
"And I do believe you, Sinclair," he said. "With all my heart I believe you and know you couldn't have taken an unfair advantage!"
"H'm," muttered Riley. "It ain't bad to hear you say that. And now trot along, son."
Cold Feet made no move to obey.
"Not that I wouldn't like to have you along, but where I got to go, you'd be a weight around my neck. Besides, your game is to show the folks down yonder that you ain't a murderer, and that paper I've give you will prove it. We'll drift together along the trail part way, and down yonder I turn up for the tall timber."
To all this Jig returned no answer, but in a peculiarly lifeless manner went to his horse and climbed in his awkward way into the saddle. They went down the trail slowly.
"Because," explained the cowpuncher, "if I save my hoss's wind I may be saving my own life."
Where the trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse's nose up to the taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and looked mournfully up at his companion.
"So long," said Sinclair cheerily. "And when you get down yonder, it'll happen most likely that pretty soon you'll hear a lot of hard things about Riley Sinclair."
"If I do—if I hear a syllable against you," cried the schoolteacher with a flare of color, "I'll—I'll drive the words back into their teeth!"
He shook with his emotion; Riley Sinclair shook with controlled laughter.
"Would you do all of that, partner? Well, I believe you'd try. What I mean to say is this: No matter what they say, you can lay to it that Sinclair has tried to play square and clean according to his own lights, which ain't always the best in the world. So long!"
There was no answer. He found himself looking down into the quivering face of the schoolteacher.
"Why, kid, you look all busted up!"
"Riley," gasped Jig very faintly, "I can't go!"
"And why not?"
"Because I can't meet Jude."
"Cartwright, eh? But you got to, sooner or later."
"I'll die first."
"Would your nerve hold you up through that?"
"So easily," said Jig. There was such a simple gravity and despair in his expression that Sinclair believed it. He grunted and stared hard.
"This Cartwright gent is worse'n death to you?"
"A thousand, thousand times!"
"How come?"
"I can't tell you."
"I kind of wish," said Sinclair thoughtfully, "that I'd kept my grip a mite longer."
"No, no!"
"You don't wish him dead?"
Jig shuddered.
"You plumb beat me, partner. And now you want to come along with me?" Sinclair grinned. "An outlaw's life ain't what it's cracked up to be, son. You'd last about a day doing what I have to do."
"You'll find," said the schoolteacher eagerly, "that I can stand it amazingly well. I'll—I'll be far, far stronger than you expect!"
"Somehow I kind of believe it. But it's for your own fool sake, son, that I don't want you along."