The Breaking Point - Page 155/275

"You see, you've not only made a man's place in the world, Clark, as

I've told you. You've formed associations you can't get away from.

You've got to think of the Livingstones, and you told me yesterday a

shock would kill the old man. But it's more than that. There's a girl

back in your town. I think you were engaged to her."

But if he had hoped to pierce the veil with that statement he failed.

Dick's face flushed, and he went to the door of the cabin, much as he

had gone to the window the day before. He did not look around when he

spoke.

"Then I'm an unconscionable cad," he said. "I've only cared for one

woman in my life. And I've shipwrecked her for good."

"You mean--"

"You know who I mean."

Sometime later Bassett got on his horse and rode out to a ledge which

commanded a long stretch of trail in the valley below. Far away horsemen

were riding along it, one behind the other, small dots that moved on

slowly but steadily. He turned and went back to the cabin.

"We'd better be moving," he said, "and it's up to you to say where.

You've got two choices. You can go back to Norada and run the chance of

arrest. You know what that means. Without much chance of a conviction

you will stand trial and bring wretchedness to the people who stood by

you before and who care for you now. Or you can go on over the mountains

with me and strike the railroad somewhere to the West. You'll have time

to think things over, anyhow. They've waited ten years. They can wait

longer."

To his relief Dick acquiesced. He had become oddly passive; he seemed

indeed not greatly interested. He did not even notice the haste with

which Bassett removed the evidences of their meal, or extinguished the

dying fire and scattered the ashes. Nor, when they were mounted, the

care with which they avoided the trail. He gave, when asked, information

as to the direction of the railroad at the foot of the western slope of

the range, and at the same instigation found a trail for them some miles

beyond their starting point. But mostly he merely followed, in a dead

silence.

They made slow progress. Both horses were weary and hungry, and the

going was often rough and even dangerous. But for Dick's knowledge of

the country they would have been hopelessly lost. Bassett, however,

although tortured with muscular soreness, felt his spirits rising as the

miles were covered, and there was no sign of the pursuit.