Part 12 (1/2)

”How much grub have we got?”

Paul gave a flattering estimate of their resources. The patient was not deceived.

”Where's it all gone to? You ain't eat anything.”

”I've eaten a good deal more than you have.”

”I was livin' on fever.”

”You can't live on fever any longer. The fever has left you, and you'll go with it if you don't obey your doctor.”

”But where's all the stuff _gone_ to?”

”There were four of them, and they allowed for some delay in getting out,” Paul explained, with a sickly smile.

”Well, they was hogs! I knew how they'd pan out! That was why”--He wearied of speech and left the point unfinished.

On the evening following, when the two could no longer see each other's faces in the dusk, Paul spoke, controlling his voice:--

”I need not ask you, John, what you think of our chances?”

”I guess they ain't much worth thinking about.” The fire hissed and crackled; the soft subsidence of the snow could be heard outside.

”We are 'free among the dead,' how does it go? 'Like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave.' What we say to each other here will stop here with our breath. Let us put our memories in order for the last reckoning. I think, John, you must, at some time in your life, have known my father, Adam Bogardus? He was lost on the Snake River plains, twenty-one years ago this autumn.”

Receiving no answer, the pale young inquisitor went on, choosing his words with intense deliberation as one feeling his way in the dark.

”Most of us believe in some form of communication that we can't explain, between those who are separated in body, in this world, but closely united in thought. Do I make myself clear?”

There was a sound of deep breathing from the bunk; it produced a similar conscious excitement in the speaker. He halted, recovered himself, and continued:--

”After my father's disappearance, my mother had a distinct presentiment--it haunted her for years--that something had happened to him at a place called One Man Station. Did you ever know the place?”

”I might have.” The words came huskily.

”Father had left her at this place, and to her knowledge he never came back. But she had this intimation--and suffered from it--that he did come back and was foully dealt with there--wronged in body or mind. The place had most evil a.s.sociations for her; it was not strange she should have connected it with the great disaster of her life. As you lay talking to yourself in your fever, you took me back on that lost trail that ended, as we thought, in the grave. But we might have been mistaken. Is there anything it would not be safe for you and me to speak of now? Do you know any tie between men that should be closer than the tie between us? Any safer place where a man could lay off the secret burdens of his life and be himself for a little while--before the end answers all? I know you have a secret. I believe that a share of it belongs to me.”

”We are better off sometimes if we don't get all that belongs to us,”

said John gratingly.

”It doesn't seem to be a matter of choice, does it? If you were not meant to tell me--what you have partly told me already--where is there any meaning in our being here at all? Let us have some excuse for this senseless accident. Do you believe much in accidents? How foolish”--Paul sighed--”for you and me to be afraid of each other! Two men who have parted with everything but the privilege of speaking the truth!”

The packer raised himself in his bunk slowly, like one in pain. He looked long at the listless figure crouching by the fire; then he sank back again with a low groan. ”What was it you heared me say? Come!”

”I can't give you the exact words. The words were nothing. Haven't you watched the sparks blow up, at night, when the wind goes searching over the ashes of an old camp-fire? It was the fever made you talk, and your words were the sparks that showed where there had been fire once.

Perhaps I had no right to track you by your own words when you lay helpless, but I couldn't always leave you. Now I'd like to have my share of that--whatever it was--that hurt you so, at One Man Station.”

”You ought to been a lawyer,” said the packer, releasing his breath.

There was less strain in his voice. It broke with feeling. ”You put up a mighty strong case for your way of looking at it. I don't say it's best.