 CHAPTER 30 When the first landmark, the lone clump of cotton-woods, came at length in sight, dark and blurred in the gentle rain, standing out perhaps a mile beyond the distant buildings, my whole weary body hailed the approach of repose. Saving the noon hour I had been in the saddle since six, and now six was come round again. The ranch, my resting place for this night, was a ruin, cabin stable and corral. Yet after the twelve hours of pushing on and on through silence, still to have silence, still to eat and go to sleep in it, perfectly fitted the mood of both my flesh and spirit. That noon, when for a while I had thrown off my long oil-skin coat, merely the sight of the newspaper half-crowded into my pocket, had been a displeasing reminder of the railway and cities and affairs. But for its possible help to build fires it would have come no farther with me. The great levels around me lay cooled and freed of dust by the wet weather, and full of sweet airs. Far in front the foothills rose through the rain, indefinite and mystic. I wanted no speech with anyone, nor to be near human beings at all. I was steeped in a reverie as of the primal earth, even thoughts themselves had almost ceased motion. To lie down with wild animals, with elk and deer, would have made my waking dream complete, and since such dream could not be, the cattle around the deserted buildings, mere dots as yet across separating space, were my proper companions for this evening. Tomorrow night I should probably be camping with the Virginian in the foothills. At his letters bidding I had come eastward across Idaho, abandoning my hunting in the saw-tooth range to make this journey with him back through the Tetons. It was a trail known to him, and not to many other honest men. Horse-thief pass was the name his letter gave it. Business, he was always brief, would call him over there at this time. Returning he must attend to certain matters in the Wind River country. There I could leave by stage for the railroad, or go on with him the whole way back to Sunk Creek. He designated for our meeting the forks of a certain little stream in the foothills, which to-day's ride had brought in sight. There would be no chance for him to receive an answer from me in the intervening time. If by a certain day, which was four days off still, I had not reached the forks, he would understand I had other plans. To me it was like living back in ages gone, this way of meeting my friend, this choice of a stream so far and lonely that it's very coarse upon the maps was wrongly traced. And to leave behind all noise and mechanisms, and set out at ease, slowly, with one pack-horse into the wilderness, made me feel that the ancient earth was indeed my mother, and that I had found her again after being lost among houses, customs, and restraints. I should arrive three days early at the forks, three days of margin seeming to me a wise precaution against delays unforeseen. If the Virginian were not there, good, I could fish and be happy. If he were there, but not ready to start, good, I could still fish and be happy. And remembering my eastern helplessness in the year when we had met first, I enjoyed thinking how I had come to be trusted. In those days I had not been allowed to go from the ranch for so much as an afternoon's ride unless tied to him by a string, so to speak. Now I was crossing unmapped spaces with no guidance. The man who could do this was scarce any longer a tenderfoot. My vision as I rode took in serenely the dim foothills, tomorrow's goal, and nearer in the vast wet plain the clump of cottonwoods, and still nearer my lodging for tonight with the dotted cattle round it. And now my horse nade. I felt his gait freshen for the journey's end, and, leaning to pat his neck, I noticed his ears no longer slack and inattentive, but pointing forward to where food and rest awaited both of us. Twice he nade, impatiently and long, and as he quickened his gait still more, the pack-horse did the same, and I realized that there was about me still a spice of the tender-foot. Those dots were not cattle, they were horses. My horse had put me in the wrong. He had known his kind from afar and was hastening to them. The plainsman's eye was not yet mine, and I smiled a little as I rode. When was I going to know, as by instinct, the different look of horses and cattle across some two or three miles of plain? These miles we finished soon. The buildings changed in their aspect as they grew to my approach, showing their desolation more clearly, and in some way bringing apprehension into my mood. And around them the horses, too, all standing with ears erect, watching me as I came, there was something about them, or was it the silence? For the silence which I had liked until now seemed suddenly to be made too great by the presence of the deserted buildings. And then the door of the stable opened, and men came out and stood, also watching me arrive. By the time I was dismounting more were there. It was senseless to feel as unpleasant as I did, and I strove to give to them a greeting that should sound easy. I told them that I hoped there was room for one more here tonight. Some of them had answered my greeting, but none of them answered this. And as I began to be sure that I recognized several of their strangely imperturbable faces, the Virginian came from the stable, and at that welcome sight my relief spoke out instantly. I am here, you see? Yes, I do see. I looked hard at him, for in his voice was the same strangeness that I felt in everything around me. But he was looking at his companions. This gentleman is all right, he told them. That may be, said one whom I now knew that I had seen before at St. Creek, but he was not due tonight. Nor tomorrow, said another, nor yet the day after, a third added. The Virginian fell into his drawl. None of you was ever early for anything, I presume. One retorted, laughing, oh, we're not suspicion in you of complicity. And another, not even when we remember how thick you and Steve used to be. Whatever jokes they meant by this he did not receive as jokes. I saw something like a wince pass over his face and a flush follow it. But he now spoke to me. We expected to be through before this, he began. I'm right sorry you have come tonight. I know you'd have preferred to keep away. We want him to explain himself, put in one of the others. If he satisfies us, he's free to go away. Free to go away, I now exclaimed. But at the indulgence in their frontier smile I cooled down. Gentlemen, I said, I don't know why my movements interest you so much. It's quite a compliment. May I get under shelter while I explain? No request could have been more natural, for the rain had now begun to fall in straight floods. Yet there was a pause before one of them said, he might as well. The Virginian chose to say nothing more, but he walked beside me into the stable. Two men sat there together and a third guarded them. At that sight I knew suddenly what I had stumbled upon and on the impulse I murmured to the Virginian, you're hanging them tomorrow. He kept his silence. You may have three guesses, said a man behind me, but I did not need them and in the recoil of my insight the clump of cotton woods came into my mind black and grim. No other trees high enough grew within ten miles. This then was the business that the Virginian's letter had so curtly mentioned. My eyes went into all corners of the stable, but no other prisoners were here. I half expected to see Trampas, and I half feared to see Shorty. For poor stupid Shorty's honesty had not been proof against frontier temptations, and he had fallen away from the company of his old friends. Often of late I had heard talk at Sunk Creek of breaking up a certain gang of horse and cattle thieves that stole in one territory and sold in the next, and knew where to hide in the mountains between. And now it had come to the point. Forces had been gathered, a long expedition made, and here they were, successful under the Virginian's lead, but a little later than their calculations. And here was I, a little too early, and a witness in consequence. My presence seemed a simple thing to account for, but when I had thus accounted for it one of them said with good nature, so you find us here and we find you here, which is the most surprised I wonder? There's no telling, said I, keeping as amiable as I could, nor any telling which objects the most. Oh, there's no objection here. You're welcome to stay, but not welcome to go, I expect. He ain't welcome to go, is he? By the answers that their faces gave him it was plain that I was not. Not till we are through, said one. He needed to see anything, another added. Better sleep late to-morrow morning, a third suggested to me. I did not wish to stay here. I could have made some sort of camp apart from them before dark, but in the face of their needless caution I was helpless. I made no attempt to inquire what kind of spy they imagined I could be, what sort of rescue I could bring in this lonely country. My too early appearance seemed to be all that they looked at, and again my eyes sought the prisoners. Certainly there were only two. One was chewing tobacco and talking now and then to his guard as if nothing were the matter. The other sat dull in silence, not moving his eyes, but his face worked, and I noticed how he continually moistened his dry lips. As I looked at these doomed prisoners, whose fate I was invited to sleep through tomorrow morning, the one who was chewing quietly nodded to me. You don't remember me, he said. It was Steve, Steve of Medicine Bow, the pleasant Steve of my first evening in the West. Some change of beard had delayed my instant recognition of his face. Here he sat, sentenced to die. A shock, chill, and painful deprived me of speech. He had no such weak feelings. Have you been to Medicine Bow lately? He inquired. That's getting to be quite a while ago. I assented. I should have liked to say something natural and kind, but words stuck against my will, and I stood awkward and ill at ease, noticing idly that the silent one wore a gray flannel shirt like mine. Steve looked me over and saw in my pocket the newspaper which I had brought from the railroad, and on which I had penciled a few expenses. He asked me would I mind letting him have it for a while, and I gave it to him eagerly, begging him to keep it as long as he wanted. I was over-eager in my embarrassment. You need not return it at all, I said. Those notes are nothing. Do keep it. He gave me a short glance and a smile. Thank you, he said. I'll not need it beyond tomorrow morning. And he began to search through it. Jake's election is considered sure, he said to his companion, who made no response. Well, Fremont County owes it to Jake, and I left him interested in the local news. Dead men I have seen not a few times, even some lying pale and terrible after violent ends, and the edge of this wears off. But I hope I shall never again have to be in the company with men waiting to be killed. By this time tomorrow the gray flannel shirt would be buttoned round the corpse, until what moment would Steve chew? Against such fancies as these I managed presently to barricade my mind. But I made a plea to be allowed to pass the night elsewhere, and I suggested the adjacent cabin. By their faces I saw that my words merely helped their distrust of me. The cabin leaked too much, they said. I would sleep drier here. One man gave it to me more directly. If you figured on camp in this stable what has changed your mind? How could I tell them that I shrunk from any contact with what they were doing, although I knew that only so could justice be dealt in this country. Their wholesome frontier nerves knew nothing of such refinements. But the Virginian understood part of it. I am right sorry for your annoyance, he said, and now I noticed he was under a constraint very different from the ease of the others. After the twelve hours' ride my bones were hungry for rest. I spread my blankets on some straw in a stall by myself and rolled up in them. Yet I lay growing broader awake, every inch of weariness stricken from my excited senses. For a while they sat over their counsels, whispering cautiously, so that I was made curious to hear them by not being able. Was it the names of Trampas and Shorty that were once or twice spoken? I could not be sure. I heard the whisperers cease and separate. I heard their boots as they cast them off upon the ground. And I heard the breathing of slumber begin and grow in the interior silence. To one after one sleep came, but not to me. Outside the dull fall of the rain beat evenly, and in some angle dripped the spouting pulses of a leak. Sometimes a cold air blew in, bearing with it the keen wet odor of the sagebrush. On hundreds of other nights this perfume had been my last waking remembrance. It had seemed to help drowsiness. And now I lay staring, thinking of this. Twice through the hours the thieves shifted their positions with clumsy sounds, exchanging muted words with their guard. So often had I heard other companions move and mutter in the darkness and lie down again. It was the very naturalness and usualness of every fact of the night. The stable straw, the rain outside, my familiar blankets, the cool visits of the wind, and with all this the thought of Steve chewing and the man in the gray flannel shirt that made the hours unearthly and strung me tight with suspense. And at last I heard someone get up and begin to dress. In a little while I saw light suddenly through my closed eyelids and then darkness shut again abruptly upon them. They had swung in a lantern and found me by mistake. I was the only one they did not wish to rouse. Moving and quiet talking set up around me and they began to go out of the stable. At the gleams of new daylight which they let in my thoughts went to the clump of cottonwoods and I lay still with hands and feet growing steadily cold. Now it was going to happen. I wondered how they would do it. One instance had been described to me by a witness but that was done from a bridge and there had been but a single victim. This morning would one have to wait and see the other go through with it first? The smell of smoke reached me and next the rattle of ten dishes. Breakfast was something I had forgotten and one of them was cooking it now in the dry shelter of the stable. He was alone because the talking and the steps were outside the stable and I could hear the sounds of horses being driven into the corral and saddled. Then I perceived that the coffee was ready and almost immediately the cook called them. One came in shutting the door behind him as he re-entered which the rest as they followed imitated for at each opening of the door I saw the light of day leap into the stable and heard the louder sounds of the rain. Then the sound and the light would again be shut out until someone at length spoke out bluntly bidding the door be left open on account of the smoke. What were they hiding from? He asked. The runaways that had escaped? A laugh followed this sally and the door was left open. Thus I learned that there had been more thieves than the two that were captured. It gave a little more ground for their suspicion about me and my anxiety to pass the night elsewhere. It cost nothing to detain me and they were taking no chances, however remote. The fresh air and the light now filled the stable and I lay listening while their breakfast brought more talk from them. They were more at ease now than was I who had nothing to do but carry out my roll of slumber in the stall. They spoke in a friendly, ordinary way as if this were like every other morning of the week to them. They addressed the prisoners with a sort of fraternal kindness, not bringing them pointedly into the conversation, nor yet pointedly leaving them out. I made out that they must all be sitting around the breakfast together, those who had to die and those who had to kill them. The Virginian I never heard speak, but I heard the voice of Steve. He discussed with his captors the sundry points of his capture. Do you remember a haystack, he asked, away up the south fork of Grossventre? That was Thursday afternoon, said one of the captors. There was a shower. Yes, it rained. We had you fooled that time. I was laying on the ledge above to report your movements. Several of them laughed. We thought you were over on Spread Creek then. I figured you thought so by the trail you left after the stack. Saturday we watched you turn your back on us up Spread Creek. We were snug among the trees, the other side of Snake River. That was another time we had you fooled. They laughed again at their own expense. I have heard men picked to pieces a hand of wist with more antagonism. Steve continued, Would we head for Idaho? Would we swing back over the divide? You didn't know which and when we generaled you on to that band of horses you thought was the band you were hunting? Ah, we were a strong combination. He broke off with the first touch of bitterness I had felt in his words. Nothing is any stronger than its weakest point. It was the Virginian who said this and it was the first word he had spoken. Naturally, said Steve, his tone in addressing the Virginian was so different, so curt, that I supposed he took the weakest point to mean himself. But the others now showed me that I was wrong in this explanation. That's so, one said, its weakest point is where a rope or a gang of men is going to break when the strain comes and you was linked with a poor partner, Steve. You're right. I was said the prisoner back in his easy casual voice. You ought to have got yourself separated from him, Steve. There was a pause. Yes, said the prisoner mootily. I'm sitting here because one of us blundered. He cursed the blunderer. Lighting his fool fire queered the whole deal, he added. As he again heavily cursed the blunderer, the others murmured to each other various, I told you so. You'd never have built that fire, Steve, said one. I said that when we spied the smoke, said another. I said that's none of Steve's work, lighting fires and revealing to us their whereabouts. It struck me that they were applying Steve with compliments. Pretty hard to have the fool get away and you get caught, a third suggested. At this they seemed to wait. I felt something curious in all this last talk. Oh, did he get away? said the prisoner then. Again they waited and a new voice spoke huskily. I built that fire, boys. It was the prisoner in the gray flannel shirt. Too late, Ed, they told him kindly. You ain't a good liar. What makes you laugh, Steve, said someone. Oh, the things I notice. I mean, and Ed was pretty slow in backing up your play. The joke is really on you, Steve. You'd ought never to have cursed the fire builder if you wanted us to believe he was present. But we'd not have done much to shorty even if we had caught him. All he wants is to be scared good and hard and he'll go back into virtuousness, which is his nature when not traveling with Trampas. Steve's voice sounded hard now. You have caught, Ed and me, that should satisfy you for one gather. Well, we think different, Steve. Trampas escape and leaves this thing unfinished. So Trampas escaped too, did he? said the prisoner. Yes, Steve, if Trampas escaped this time, and shorty with him this time, we know it most as well as if we'd seen them go, and we're glad shorty is loose, for he'll build another fire or do some other foolishness next time, and that's the time we'll get Trampas. Their talk drifted to other points, and I lay thinking of the skirmish that had played beneath the surface of their banter. Yes, the joke, as they put it, was on Steve. He had lost one point in the game to them. They were playing for names. He, being a chivalrous thief, was playing to hide names. They could only, among several likely confederates, guess Trampas and shorty. So it had been a slip for him to curse the man who built the fire. At least they so held it. For they, with subtly reasoned, one curses the absent. And I agreed with them that Ed did not know how to lie well. He should have at once claimed the disgrace of having spoiled the expedition. If shorty was the blunderer, then certainly Trampas was the other man, for the two were as inseparable as dog and master. Trampas had enticed shorty away from good, and trained him in evil. It now struck me that after his single remark the Virginian had been silent throughout their shrewd discussion. It was the other prisoner that I heard them next address. You don't eat any breakfast, Ed. Brace up, Ed. Look at Steve how hardy he eats. But Ed, it seemed, wanted no breakfast. And the ten dishes rattled as they were gathered and taken to be packed. Drink this coffee anyway, another urged. You'll feel warmer. These words almost made it seem like my own execution. My whole body turned cold in company with the prisoners. And as if with a clank the situation tightened throughout my senses. I reckon if everyone's ready we'll start. It was the Virginian's voice once more and different from the rest. I heard them rise at his bidding and I put the blanket over my head. I felt their tread as they walked out, passing my stall. The straw that was half under me and half out in the stable was stirred as by something heavy dragged or half lifted along over it. Look out your hurting Ed's arm, one said to another, as the steps with tangled sounds passed slowly out. I heard another among those who followed say, poor Ed couldn't swallow his coffee. Outside they began getting on their horses and next their hoofs grew distant until all was silence round the stable except the dull, even falling of the rain. End of CHAPTER XXXI The Cotton Woods I do not know how long I stayed there alone. It was the Virginian who came back and as he stood at the foot of my blankets his eye, after meeting mine full for a moment, turned aside. I had never seen him look as he did now, not even in pitch-stone canyon when we came upon the bodies of Hank and his wife. Until this moment we had found no chance of speaking together except in the presence of others. Seems to be raining still, I began after a little. Yes, it's a wet spell. He stared out of the door, smoothing his mustache. It was again I that spoke. What time is it? He brooded over his watch. Twelve minutes to seven. I rose and stood drawing on my clothes. The fires out, said he, and he assembled some new sticks over the ashes. Presently he looked round with a cup. Never mind that for me, I said. We've a long ride, he suggested. I know, I've crackers in my pocket. My boots being pulled on, I walked to the door and watched the clouds. They seemed as if they might lift, I said, and I took out my watch. What time is it? he asked. A quarter of its rundown. While I wound it he seemed to be consulting his own. Well, I inquired. Ten minutes past seven. As I was setting my watch he slowly said, Steve wound his all regular. I had to nightguard him till two. His speech was like that of one in a trance, so at least it sounds in my memory today. Again I looked at the weather and the rainy immensity of the plain. The foothills eastward where we were going were a soft yellow. Over the gray-green sagebrush moved shapeless places of light, not yet the uncovered sunlight, but spots where the storm was wearing thin, and wandering streams of warmth passed by slowly in the surrounding air. As I watched the clouds and the earth, my eyes chanced to fall on the distant clump of cottonwoods. Vapors from the enfeebled storm floated round them, and they were indeed far away, but I came inside and began rolling up my blankets. You will not change your mind, said the Virginian by the fire. It is thirty-five miles. I shook my head feeling a certain shame that he should see how unnerved I was. He swallowed a hot cup full, and after it sat thinking, and presently he passed his hand across his brow, shutting his eyes. Again he poured out a cup, and emptying this rose abruptly to his feet as if shaking himself free from something. Let's pack and quit here, he said. Our horses were in the corral and our belongings in the shelter of what had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He collected them in silence while I saddled my own animal, and in silence we packed the two packhorses and threw the diamond hitch and hauled tight the slack damp ropes. Soon we had mounted, and as we turned into the trail I gave a look back at my last night's lodging. The Virginian noticed me. Goodbye forever, he interpreted. By God I hope so. Same here, he confessed, and these were our first natural words this morning. This will go well, said I, holding my flask out to him, and both of us took some and felt easier for it and the natural words. For an hour we had been shirking real talk, holding fast to the weather or anything, and all the while that silent thing we were keeping off spoke plainly in the air around us and in every syllable that we uttered. But now we were going to get away from it, leave it behind in the stable, and set ourselves free from it by talking it out. Already relief had begun to stir in my spirits. You never did this before, I said. No, I never had it to do. He was riding beside me, looking down at his saddle horn. I do not think I should ever be able, I pursued. Defiance sounded in his answer. I would do it again this morning. Oh, I don't mean that, it's all right here, there's no other way. I would do it all over again the same this morning, just the same. Why, so should I, if I could do it at all. I still thought he was justifying their justice to me. He made no answer as he rode along, looking all the while at his saddle. But again he passed his hand over his forehead with that frown and shutting of the eyes. I should like to be sure I should behave myself if I were condemned, I said next, for it now came to me. Which should I resemble? Could I read the newspaper and be interested in county elections and discuss coming death as if I had lost a game of cards? Or would they have to drag me out? That poor wretch in the gray flannel shirt. It was bad in the stable, I said aloud, for an aftershiver of it went through me. A third time his hand brushed his forehead, and I ventured some sympathy. I'm afraid your headaches. I don't want to keep seeing Steve, he muttered. Steve, I was astounded. Why he, why all I saw of him was splendid, since it had to be, it was, oh yes, Ed, you're thinking about him. I'd forgot him, so you didn't enjoy, Ed. At this I looked at him blankly. It isn't possible that, again, he cut me short with a laugh, almost savage. You needn't to worry about Steve, he stayed game. What then had been the matter that he should keep seeing Steve, that his vision should so obliterate from him what I still shivered at, and so shake him now? For he seemed to be growing more stirred as I grew less. I asked him no further questions, however, and we went on for several minutes, he brooding always in the same fashion, until he resumed with the hard indifference that had before surprised me. So Ed gave you feelings, dumb, ague, and so forth. No doubt we're not made the same way, I retorted. He took no notice of this, and you'd have been more comfortable if he'd acted same as Steve did. It certainly was bad seeing Ed take it that way, I reckon, and you didn't see him when the time came for business. Well, here's what it is. A man may be such a confirmed miscreant that killens the only cure for him, but still he's your own species and you don't want to have him fall around and grab your legs and show you his fear naked. It makes you feel ashamed. So Ed gave you feelings, and Steve made everything right easy for you. There was irony in his voice as he surveyed me, but it fell away at once into sadness. Both was miscreants, but if Steve had played the coward, too, it would have been a whole heap easier for me. He paused before adding, and Steve was not a miscreant once. His voice had trembled, and I felt the deep emotion that seemed to gain upon him now that action was over and he had nothing to do but think. And his view was simple enough. You must die brave. Failure is a sort of treason to the brotherhood and forfeits pity. It was Steve's perfect bearing that had caught his heart so that he forgot even his scorn of the other man. But this was by no means all that was to come. He harked back to that notion of a prisoner helping to make it easy for his executioner. Easy plum to the end, he pursued, his mind reviewing the acts of the morning. Why, he tried to give me your newspaper. I didn't—oh, no, I said hastily. I had finished with it. Well, he took Diane as naturally as he took Livin', like a man should, like I hoped to. Again, he looked at the pictures in his mind. No play acting or last words. He just told goodbye to the boys as we led his horse under the limb. You needn't to look so dainty, he broke off. You ain't going to get any more shock in particulars. I know I'm white-livered, I said, with a species of laugh. I never crowd and stare when somebody is heard in the street. I get away. He thought this over. You don't mean all of that. You'd not have spoke just that way about crowd and staring if you thought well of them that stare. Staring ain't courage. It's trashy curiosity. Now you did not have this thing. He had stretched out his hand to point, but it fell, and his utterance stopped, and he jerked his horse to a stand. My nerves sprang like a wire at his suddenness, and I looked where he was looking. There were the cotton-woods close in front of us. As we had traveled and talked, we had forgotten them. Now they were looming within a hundred yards, and our trail lay straight through them. Let's go around them, said the Virginian. When we had come back from our circuit into the trail, he continued, You did not have that thing to do, but a man goes through with his responsibilities, and I reckon you could. I hope so, I answered. How about Ed? He was not a man, though we thought he was, till this. Steve and I started punching cattle together at the Bordeaux outfit north of Cheyenne. We did everything together in those days, work and play. Six years ago, Steve had many good points once. We must have gone two miles before he spoke again. You probably didn't notice Steve, I mean the way he acted to me. It was a question, but he did not wait for my answer. Steve never said a word to me all through. He shunned it, and you saw how neighborly he talked to the other boys. Where have they all gone? I asked. He smiled at me. It certainly is lonesome now, for a fact. I didn't know you felt it, said I. Feel it. They've went to the railroad. Three of them are witnesses in a case at Evanston, and the judge wants our outfit at Medicine Bow. Steve shunned me. Did he think I was going back on him? What if he did? You were not. And so nobody's going to Wind River but you? No. Did you notice Steve would not give us any information about Shorty? That was right. I would have acted that way too. Thus each time he brought me back to the subject. The sun was now shining warm during two or three minutes together, and gulfs of blue opened in the great white clouds. These moved and met among each other and parted, like hands spread out, slowly weaving a spell of sleep over the day after the wakeful night storm. The huge contours of the earth lay basking and drying, and not one living creature, bird or beast, was in sight. Quiet was returning to my revived spirits, but there was none for the Virginian, and as he reasoned matters out aloud, his mood grew more overcast. You have a friend in his ways or your ways. You travel together, you spree together, confidentially, and you suit each other down to the ground. Then one day you find him putting his iron on another man's calf. You tell him fair and square those ways have never been your ways, and ain't going to be your ways. Well, that has not changed him any, for it seems he's disturbed over getting rich quick and being a big man in the territory. And the years go on until you are foreman of Judge Henry's ranch, and he is dangling back in the cotton woods. What can he claim? Who made the choice? He cannot say, here is my old friend that I would have stood by. Can he say that? But he didn't say it, I protested. No, he shunned me. Listen, I said. Suppose while you were on guard he had whispered, Get me off. Would you have done it? No, sir, said the Virginian, hotly. Then what do you want? I asked. What did you want? He could not answer me, but I had not answered him, I saw, so I pushed it farther. Did you want endorsement from the man you were hanging? That's asking a little too much. But he had now another confusion. Steve stood by Shorty, he said musingly. It was Shorty's mistake cost him his life, but all the same he didn't want us to catch. You are mixing things, I interrupted. I never heard you mix things before, and it was not Shorty's mistake. He showed momentary interest. Who's then? The mistake of whoever took a fool into their enterprise. That's correct. Well, Trampas took Shorty in, and Steve would not tell on him, either. I still tried it, saying, they were all in the same boat. But logic was useless. He had lost his bearings in a fog of sentiment. He knew, knew passionately, that he had done right, but the silence of his old friend to him, through those last hours, left a sting that no reasoning could assuage. He told goodbye to the rest of the boys, but not to me. And nothing I could point out in common sense turned him from the thread of his own argument. He worked round the circle again to self-justification. Was it him I was deserting? Was not the deserting done by him the day I spoke my mind about stealing calves? I have kept my ways the same. He is the one that took to new ones. The man I used to travel with is not the man back there. Same name, to be sure, and same body, but different in—and yet he had the memory. You can't never change your memory. He gave a sob. It was the first I had ever heard from him. And before I knew what I was doing, I had reigned my horse up to his and put my arm around his shoulders. I had no sooner touched him than he was utterly overcome. I knew, Steve, awful well, he said. Thus we had actually come to change places. For early in the morning he had been firm while I was unnerved, while now it was I who attempted to steady and comfort him. I had the sense to keep silent, and presently he shook my hand, not looking at me as he did so. He was always very shy of demonstration. And he took to patting the neck of his pony. You, Monty Haas, said he, you think you are wise, but there's a lot of things you don't savvy. Then he made a new beginning of talk between us. It is kind of pitiful about shorty. Very pitiful, I said. Do you know about him? the Virginian asked. I know there's no real harm in him, and some real good, and that he has not got the brains necessary to be a horse, Steve. That's so. That's very true. Trampas has led him in deeper than his stature can stand. Now back east you can be middling and get along. But if you go to try a thing on in this western country, you've got to do it well. You've got to deal yards well. You've got to steal well. And if you claim to be quick with your gun, you must be quick for your public temptation, and some man will not resist trying to prove he is the quicker. You must break all the commandments well in this western country, and shorty should have stayed in Brooklyn, for he will be a novice his live long days. You don't know about him? He has told me his circumstances. He don't remember his father, and it was like he could have claimed three or four, and I expect his mother was not much interested in him before or after he was born. He ran around and when he was 18 he got to be helped to a grocery man. But a girl he ran with kept taking all his pay and teasing him for more. And so one day the grocery man caught shorty robbing his till and fired him. There wasn't no one to tell goodbye to, for the girl had to go to the country to see her aunt, she said. So shorty hung around the store and kissed the grocery cat goodbye. He'd been used to feeding the cat, and she'd sit in his lap and purr, he told me. He sends money back to that girl now. This here country is no country for shorty, for he will be a conspicuous novice all his days. Perhaps he'll prefer honesty after his narrow shave, I said. But the Virginian shook his head. Trampas has got hold of him. The day was now all blue above and all warm and dry beneath. We had begun to wind in and rise among the first slopes of the foothills, and we had talked ourselves into silence. At the first running water we made a long nooning, and I slept on the bare ground. My body was lodged so fast and deep and slumber that when the Virginian shook me awake I could not come back to life at once. It was the clump of cottonwoods small and far out in the plain below us that recalled me. It'll not be watching us much longer, said the Virginian. He made it a sort of joke, but I knew that both of us were glad when presently we rode into a steeper country, and among its folds and carvings lost all sight of the plain. He had not slept, I found. His explanation was that the Pax needed better balancing, and after that he had gone up and down the stream on the chance of trout. But his haunted eyes gave me the real reason. They spoke of Steve, no matter what he spoke of. It was to be no short thing with him. END OF CHAPTER XXXII Superstition Trail We did not make thirty-five miles that day, nor yet twenty-five, for he had let me sleep. We made an early camp and tried some unsuccessful fishing over which he was cheerful, promising trout to-morrow when we should be higher among the mountains. He never again touched or came near the subject that was on his mind. But while I sat riding my diary he went off to his horse Monty, and I could hear that he occasionally talked to that friend. Next day we swung southward from what is known to many as the Conant Trail, and headed for that short cut through the Tetons, which is known to but a few. Bitch Creek was the name of the stream we now followed, and here there was such good fishing that we idled, and the horses and I at least enjoyed ourselves. For they found fresh pastures and shade in the now plentiful woods, and the mountain odors and the mountain heights were enough for me when the fish refused to rise. This road of ours now became the road which the pursuit had taken before the capture. Going along I noticed the footprints of many hoofs, rain-blurred but recent, and these were the tracks of the people I had met in the stable. You can notice Monty's, said the Virginian. He is the only one that has his hind feet shod. There are several trails from this point down to where we have come from. We mounted now over a long slant of rock, smooth and of wide extent. Above us it went up easily into a little side canyon, but ahead, where our way was, it grew so steep that we got off and led our horses. This brought us to the next higher level of the mountain, a space of sagebrush more open, where the rain-washed tracks appeared again in the softer ground. Someone has been here since the rain, I called to the Virginian, who was still on the rock, walking up behind the pat-courses. Since the rain, he exclaimed, that's not two days yet. He came and examined the footprints. A man and a horse, he said, frowning, going the same way we are. How did he come to pass us and us not see him? One of the other trails, I reminded him. Yes, but there's not many that knows them. They are pretty rough trails. Worst than the one we're taking? Not much, only how does he come to know any of them? And why don't he take the conant trail that's open and easy and not much longer? One man and a horse. I don't see who he is or what he wants here. Probably a prospector, I suggested. Only one outfit of prospectors has ever been here, and they claimed there was no mineral barren rock in these parts. We got back into our saddles with the mystery unsolved. To the Virginian it was a greater one, apparently than to me. Why should one have to account for every stray traveler in the mountains? That's queer, too, said the Virginian. He was now riding in front of me, and he stopped, looking down at the trail. Don't you notice? It did not strike me. Why, he keeps walking beside his horse. He don't get on him. Now we, of course, had mounted at the beginning of the better trail after the steep rock, and that was quite half a mile back. Still I had a natural explanation. He's leading a pack horse. He's a poor trapper and walks. Pack horses ain't usually shod before and behind, said the Virginian, and sliding to the ground he touched the footprints. They are not four hours old, said he. This bank's in shadow by one o'clock, and the sun has not cooked them dusty. We continued on our way, and although it seemed no very particular thing to me that a man should choose to walk and lead his horse for a while, I often did so to limber my muscles. Nevertheless, I began to catch the Virginian's uncertain feeling about this traveler whose steps had appeared on our path and mid journey, as if he had alighted from the mid-air, and to remind myself that he had come over the great face of rock from another trail, and thus joined us, and that indigent trappers are to be found, owning but a single horse, and leading him with their belongings through the deepest solitudes of the mountains. None of this quite brought back to me the comfort which had been mine since we left the cottonwoods out of sight down in the plain. Hence I called out sharply, What's the matter now, when the Virginian suddenly stopped his horse again? He looked down at the trail, and then he very slowly turned round in his saddle, and stared back steadily at me. There's two of them, he said. Two what? I don't know. You must know whether it's two horses or two men, I said, almost angrily. But to this he made no answer, sitting quite still on his horse and contemplating the ground. The silence was fastening on me like a spell, and I spurred my horse impatiently forward to see for myself. The footprints of two men were there in the trail. What do you say to that? said the Virginian. Kind of ridiculous, ain't it? Very quaint, I answered, groping for the explanation. There was no rock here to walk over and step from into the softer trail. These second steps came more out of the air than the first, and my brain played me the evil trick of showing me a dead man in a gray flannel shirt. It's two, you see, traveling with one horse, and they take turns riding him. Why, of course, I exclaimed, and we went along for a few paces. There you are, said the Virginian, as the trail proved him right. Number one is God on. My God, what's that? At a crashing in the woods very close to us we both flung round and caught sight of a vanishing elk. It left us confronted, smiling a little, and sounding each other with our eyes. Well, we didn't need him for meat, said the Virginian. A spikehorn, wasn't it? said I. Yes, just a spikehorn. For a while now, as we rode, we kept up a cheerful conversation about elk. We wondered if we should meet many more close to the trail like this. But it was not long before our words died away. We had come into a veritable gulf of mountain peaks, sharp at their bare summits like teeth, holding fields of snow lower down, and glittering still in full day up there, while down among our pines and parks the afternoon was growing somber. All the while the fresh hoof prints of the horse and the fresh footprints of the man preceded us. In the trees and in the opens, across the levels and up the steeps, they were there. And so they were not four hours old. Were they so much? Might we not, round some turn, come upon the makers of them? I began to watch for this, and again my brain played me an evil trick, against which I found myself actually reasoning thus. If they took turns riding, then walking must tire them, as it did me or any man. And besides, there was a horse. With such thoughts I combated the fancy that those footprints were being made immediately in front of us all the while, and that they were the only sign of any presence which our eyes could see. But my fancy overcame my thoughts. It was shame only which held me from asking this question of the Virginian. Had one horse served in both cases of justice down at the Cottonwoods? I wondered about this. One horse, or had the strangling nooses drag two saddles empty at the same signal. Most likely, and therefore these people up here. Was I going back to the nursery? I brought myself up short. And I told myself to be steady. There lurked in this brain process which was going on beneath my reason a threat worse than the childish apprehensions it created. I reminded myself that I was a man grown, twenty-five years old, and that I must not merely seem like one, but feel like one. You're not afraid of the dark, I suppose. This I uttered aloud unwittingly. What's that? I startled, but it was only the Virginian behind me. Oh nothing, the air is getting colder up here. I had presently a great relief. We came to a place where again this trail mounted so abruptly that we once more got off to lead our horses. So likewise had our predecessors done. And as I watched the two different sets of footprints I observed something and hastened to speak of it. One man is much heavier than the other. I was hoping I'd not have to tell you that, said the Virginian. You're always ahead of me. Well, still my education is progressing. Why, yes, you'll equal an engine if you keep on. It was good to be facetious, and I smiled to myself as I trudged upward. We came off the steep place, leaving the canyon beneath us, and took to horseback. And as we proceeded over the final gentle slant up to the rim of the great basin that was set among the peaks, the Virginian was jocular once more. Pounds has got on, said he, and ounces is walking. I glanced over my shoulder at him, and he nodded as he fixed the weather-beaten crimson handker chiff round his neck. Then he threw a stone at a pack animal that was delaying on the trail. Damn your buckskin hide, he drawled, you can view the scenery from the top. He was so natural, sitting loose in the saddle and cursing in his gentle voice, that I laughed to think what visions I had been harboring. The two dead men riding one horse through the mountains vanished, and I came back to every day. Do you think we'll catch up with those people? I asked. Not likely, they're traveling about the same gate we are. Ounces ought to be the best walker. Uphill, yes, but pounds will go down a foggin. We gained the rim of the basin. It lay below us, a great cup of country. Rocks, woods, opens and streams. The tall peaks rose like spires around it, magnificent and bare in the last of the sun. And we surveyed this upper world, letting our animals get breath. Our bleak crumbled rim ran like a rampart between the towering tops, a half circle of five miles or six, very wide in some parts and in some shrinking to a scanty foothold as here. Here our trail crossed over it between two eroded and fantastic shapes of stone, like mushrooms or misshapen heads on pikes. Banks of snow spread up here against the black rocks, but half an hour would see us descended to the green and the woods. I looked down, both of us looked down, but our forerunners were not there. They'll be campin' somewhere in this basin though, said the Virginian, staring at the dark pines. They have not come this trail by accident. A cold little wind blew down between our stone shapes and upward again, eddying, and round a corner upward with it came fluttering a leaf of newspaper and caught against an edge close to me. What's the latest? inquired the Virginian from his horse, for I had dismounted and had picked up the leaf. Seems to be interesting, I next heard him say. Can't you tell a man what's makin' your eyes bug out so? Yes, my voice replied to him, and it sounded like some stranger speaking lightly nearby. Oh, yes, decidedly interesting. My voice mimicked his pronunciation. It's quite the latest, I imagine. You had better read it yourself. And I handed it to him with a smile, watching his countenance, while my brain felt as if clouds were rushing through it. I saw his eyes quietly run the headings over. Well, he inquired after scanning it on both sides. I don't seem to catch the excitement. Fremont County is going to hold elections. I see they claim, Jake, it's mine, I cut him off, my own paper. Those are my pencil marks. I do not think that a microscope could have discerned a change in his face. Oh, he commented, holding the paper and fixing it with a critical eye. You mean this is the one you lent Steve, and he wanted to give me to give back to you. And so them are your own marks. For a moment more he held it judicially, as I have seen men hold a contract upon whose terms they were finally passing. Well, you have got it back now, anyway, and he handed it to me. Only a piece of it, I exclaimed, always lightly. And as I took it from him, his hand chanced to touch mine. It was cold as ice. They ain't through reading the rest, he explained, easily. Don't you throw it away after they've taken such trouble? That's true, I answered. I wonder if it's pounds or ounces I'm indebted to. Thus we made further merriment as we rode down into the Great Basin. Before us the horse and boot track showed plain in the soft slough where melted snow ran half the day. If it's a paper chase, said the Virginian, they'll drop no more along here. Unless it gets dark, said I. We'll camp before that. Maybe we'll see their fire. We did not see their fire. We descended in the chill silence, while the mushroom rocks grew far and the somber woods approached. By a stream we got off where two banks sheltered us. For a bleak wind cut down over the crags now and then, making the pines send out a great note through the basin, like breakers in a heavy sea. But we made cozy in the tent. We pitched the tent this night, and I was glad to have it shut out the mountain peaks. They showed above the banks where we camped, and in the starlight their black shapes rose stark against the sky. They, with the pines and the wind, were a bedroom too unearthly this night, and as soon as our supper dishes were washed we went inside to our lantern and our game of cribbage. This is snug, said the Virginian, as we played. That wind don't get down here. Smoking is snug too, said I, and we marked our points for an hour with no words save about the cards. I'll be pretty near glad when we get out of these mountains, said the Virginian. They're most too big. The pines had altogether ceased, but their silence was as tremendous as their roar had been. I don't know, though, he resumed. There's times when the planes can be awful big too. Presently we finished a hand, and he said, let me see that paper. He sat reading it apparently through while I arranged my blankets to make a warm bed. Then, since the paper continued to absorb him, I got myself ready and slid between my blankets for the night. You'll need another candle soon in that lantern, said I. He put the paper down. I would do it all over again, he began. The whole thing just the same. He knowed the customs of the country, and he played the game. No call to blame me for the customs of the country. You leave other folks cattle alone, or you take the consequences, and it was all known to Steve from the start. Would he have me take the judge's wages and give him the wink? He must have changed a heap from the Steve I knew if he expected that. I don't believe he expected that. He knew well enough the only thing that would have let him off would have been a regular jury, for the thieves have got hold of the juries in Johnson County. I would do it all over just the same. The expiring flame leaped in the lantern and fell blue. He broke off in his words as if to arrange the light, but did not, sitting silent instead, just visible, and seeming to watch the death struggle of the flame. I could find nothing to say to him, and I believed he was now winning his way back to serenity by himself. He kept his outward man so nearly natural that I forgot about that cold touch of his hand, and never guessed how far out from reason the tide of emotion was even now whirling him. I remember at Cheyenne once, he resumed, and he told me of a thanksgiving visit to town that he had made with Steve. We was just colts then, he said. He dwelt on their coltish doings, their adventures sought and wrought in the perfect fellowship of youth. For Steve and me most always hunted in couples back in them gamesome years, he explained, and he fell into the elemental talk of sex, such talk as would be in elks or tigers, and spoken so by him simply and naturally, as we speak of the seasons or of death or of any actuality, it was without offense. It would be offense, should I repeat it. Then, abruptly ending these memories of himself and Steve, he went out of the tent and I heard him dragging a log to the fire. When it had blazed up, there on the tent wall was his shadow and that of the log where he sat with his half broken heart. And all the while I supposed he was master of himself and self justified against Steve's omission to bid him good-bye. I must have fallen asleep before he returned, for I remember nothing except waking and finding him in his blankets beside me. The fire shadow was gone and gray cold light was dimly on the tent. He slept restlessly and his forehead was plowed by lines of pain. While I looked at him he began to mutter and suddenly started up with violence. No, he cried out. No, just the same. And thus wakened himself, staring. What's the matter? He demanded. He was slow in getting back to where we were and full consciousness found him sitting up with his eyes fixed on mine. They were more haunted than they had been at all and his next speech came straight from his dream. Maybe you'd better quit me. This ain't your trouble. I laughed. Why? What is the trouble? His eyes still intently fixed on mine. Do you think if we changed our trail we could lose them from us? I was framing a jocose reply about ounces being a good walker when the sound of hoofs rushing in the distance stopped me and he ran out of the tent with his rifle. When I followed with mine he was up the bank and all his powers alert. But nothing came out of the dimness save our three stampeded horses. They crashed over fallen timber and across the open to where their picketed comrade grazed at the end of his rope. By him they came to a stand and told him, I suppose, what they had seen, for all four now faced in the same direction, looking away into the mysterious dawn. We, likewise, stood peering and my rifle barrel felt cold in my hand. The dawn was all we saw, the inscrutable dawn, coming and coming through the black pines in the gray open of the basin. There above lifted the peaks, no sun yet on them, and behind us our stream made a little tinkling. A bear, I suppose, said I, at length. His strange look fixed me again, and then his eyes went to the horses. They smell things we can't smell, said he, very slowly. Will you prove to me they don't see things we can't see? A chill shot through me, and I could not help a frightened glance where we had been watching. But one of the horses began to graze and I had a wholesome thought. He's tired of whatever he sees then, said I, pointing. A smile came for a moment in the Virginian's face. Must be a poor show, he observed. All the horses were grazing now, and he added, it ain't hurt their appetites, any. We made our own breakfast then, and what uncanny dread I may have been touched with up to this time henceforth left me in the face of a real alarm. The shock of Steve was working upon the Virginian. He was aware of it himself. He was fighting it with all his might, and he was being overcome. He was indeed like a gallant swimmer against whom both wind and tide have conspired. And in this now foreboding solitude there was only myself to throw him ropes. His strokes for safety were as bold as was the undertow that ceaselessly annulled them. I reckon I made a fuss in the tent, said he, feeling his way with me. I threw him a rope. Yes, nightmare, indigestion, too much newspaper before retiring. He caught the rope. That's correct. I had a hell of a foolish dream for a groat-up man. You'd not think it of me. Oh, yes, I should. I've had them after prolonged lobster and champagne. Ah, he murmured, prolonged. Prolonged is what does it. He glanced behind him. Steve came back. In your lobster dream, I put in. But he missed this rope. Yes, he answered, with his eyes searching me. And he handed me the paper. By the way, where is that, I asked. I built a fire with it. But when I took it from him, it was a sick shooter I had hold of, and pointing at my breast. And then Steve spoke. Do you think you're fit to live? Steve said. And I got hot at him, and I reckon I must have told him what I thought of him. You heard me, I expect. Glad I didn't. Your language sometimes is—he laughed out. Oh, I account for all this that's happened and just like you do. If we gave our explanations, they'd be pretty near twins. The horses saw a bear, then? Maybe a bear, maybe, but here the tide caught him again. What's your idea about dreams? My ropes were all out. Liver, nerves, was the best I could do. But now he swam strongly by himself. You may think I'm discreditable, he said, but I know I am. It ought to take more than, well, men have lost their friendships before, feuds and wars of cloven orite smart bonds entwined, and if my head is going to get shook by a little old piece of newspaper, I'm ashamed I burned that. I'm ashamed to have been that weak. Any man gets unstrung, I told him. My ropes had become straws, and I strove to frame some policy for the next hours. We now finished breakfast and set forth to catch the horses. As we drove them in, I found that the Virginian was telling me a ghost story. At half past three in the morning, she saw her runaway daughter stand in with a babe in her arms. But when she moved, it was all gone. Later they found it was the very same hour the young mother died in Nogales. And she sent for the child and raised it herself. I knowed them both back home. Do you believe that? I said nothing. No more do I believe it, he asserted. And see here, Nogales' time is three hours different from Richmond. I didn't know about that point then. Once out of these mountains I knew he could write himself, but even I, who had no Steve to dream about, felt this silence of the peaks was preying on me. Her daughter and her might have been thinking mighty hard about each other just then, he pursued. But Steve is dead, finished. You certainly don't believe there's anything more? I wish I could, I told him. No, I'm satisfied. Heaven didn't never interest me much. But if there was a world of dreams after you went, he stopped himself and turned his searching eyes away from mine. There's a heap of darkness wherever you try to step, he said. And I thought I'd left off wasting thoughts on the subject. You see, he dexterously roped a horse, and once more his splendid sanity was turned to gold by his imagination. I expect in many grown-up men you'd call sensible, there's a little boy sleeping, the little kid they once was, that still keeps his fear of the dark. You mentioned the dark yourself yesterday. Well, this experience has woke up that kid in me, and blamed if I can coax the little cuss to go to sleep again. I keep telling him daylight will sure come, but he keeps a cryin' and holdin' on to me. Somewhere far in the basin there was a faint sound, and we stood still. Hush, he said. But it was like our watching the dawn, nothing more followed. They have shot that bear, I remarked. He did not answer, and we put the saddles on without talk. We made no haste, but we were not over half an hour, I suppose, in getting off with the packs. It was not a new thing to hear a shot where wild game was in plenty, yet as we rode that shot sounded already, in my mind, different from others. Perhaps I should not believe this today, but for what I look back to. To make camp last night we had turned off the trail, and now followed the stream down for a while, taking next a cut through the wood. In this way we came upon the tracks of our horses, where they had been galloping back to the camp after their fright. They had kicked up the damp and matted pine needles very plainly all along. Nothing has been here but themselves, though, said I. And they ain't showin' signs of rememberin' any scare, said the Virginian. In a little while we emerged upon an open. Here's where they was grazin', said the Virginian, and the signs were clear enough. Here's where they must have got their scare, he pursued. You stay with them while I circle a little. So I stayed, and certainly our animals were very calm at visiting this scene. When you bring a horse back to where he has recently encountered a wild animal, his ears and his nostrils are apt to be wide awake. The Virginian had stopped and was beckoning to me. Here's your bear, said he, as I arrived. Too legged, you see, and he had a horse of his own. There was a stake drivin' down where an animal had been picketed for the night. Looks like ounces, I said, considering the footprints. It's ounces, and ounces wanted another horse very bad, so him and Pounds could travel like gentlemen should. But Pounds doesn't seem to have been with him. Oh, Pounds, he was makin' coffee somewhere's in yonder when this happened. Neither of them guessed there'd be other horses wanderin' here in the night, or they both would've come. He turned back to our pack animals. Then you'll not hunt for this camp to make sure? I prefer makin' sure first, we might be expected at that camp. He took out his rifle from beneath his leg, and set it across his saddle at half-cock. I did the same, and thus cautiously we resumed our journey in a slightly different direction. This ain't all we're going to find out, said the Virginian. Ounces had a good idea, but I reckon he made a bad mistake later. We had found out a good deal without any more, I thought. Ounces had gone to bring in their single horse, and coming upon three more in the pasture had undertaken to catch one and failed, merely driving them where he feared to follow. Shorty never could rope a horse alone, I remarked. The Virginian grinned. Shorty? Well, Shorty sounds as well as Ounces. But that ain't the mistake I'm thinkin' he made. I knew that he would not tell me, but that was just like him. For the last twenty minutes, having something to do, he had become himself again, had come to earth from that unsafe country of the brain where beckoned a spectral steve. Nothing was left but in his eyes that question which Payne had set there, and I wondered if his friend of old, who seemed so brave and amiable, would have dealt him that hurt at the solemn end, had he known what a poisoned wound it would be. We came out on a ridge from which we could look down. You always want to ride on high places when there is folks around whose intentions ain't been declared, said the Virginian, and we went along our ridge for some distance. Then suddenly he turned down and guided us almost at once to the trail. That's it, he said. See? The track of a horse was very fresh on the trail, but it was a galloping horse now, and no boot prints were keeping up with it any more. No boots could have kept up with it. The rider was making time to-day. Yesterday that horse had been ridden up into the mountains at leisure. Who was on him? There was never to be any certain answer to that, but who was not on him? We turned back in our journey, back into the heart of that basin with the tall peaks all rising like teeth in the cloudless sun and the snow-field shining white. He was afraid of us, said the Virginian. He did not know how many of us had come up here. Three hausses might mean a dozen more around. We followed the backward trail in among the pines and came after a time upon their camp, and then I understood the mistake that Shorty had made. He had returned after his failure and had told that other man of the presence of new horses. He should have kept us a secret, for haste had to be made at once, and two cannot get away quickly upon one horse. But it was poor Shorty's last blunder. He lay there by their extinct fire, with his wistful lost dog face upward, and his thick yellow hair unparded as it had always been. The murder had been done from behind. We closed the eyes. There was no natural harm in him, said the Virginian. But you must do a thing well in this country. There was not a trace, not a clue, of the other man, and we found a place where we could soon cover Shorty with earth. As we lifted him, we saw the newspaper that he had been reading. He had brought it from the clump of cotton woods, where he and the other man had made a later visit than ours to be sure of the fate of their friends, or possibly in hopes of another horse. Evidently, when the party were surprised, they had been able to escape with only one. All of the newspaper was there, save the leaf I had picked up. All and more, for this had pencil writing on it that was not mine, nor did I at first take it in. I thought it might be a clue, and I read it aloud. Good-bye, Jeff, it said. I could not have spoken to you without playing the baby. Who's Jeff, I asked. But it came over me when I looked at the Virginian. He was standing beside me, quite motionless, and then he put out his hand and took the paper and stood still, looking at the words. Steve used to call me Jeff, he said. Because I was Southern, I reckon nobody else ever did. He slowly folded the message from the dead, brought by the dead, and rolled it in the coat behind his saddle. For a half-minute he stood, leaning his forehead down against the saddle. After this he came back and contemplated Shorty's face a while. I wish I could thank him, he said. I wish I could. We carried Shorty over and covered him with earth, and on that laid a few pine branches. Then we took up our journey, and by the end of the forenoon we had gone some distance upon our trail through the Teton Mountains. But in front of us the hoof-prints ever held their stride of haste, drawing farther from us through the hours, until by the next afternoon somewhere we noticed they were no longer to be seen, and after that they never came upon the trail again.