"I showed myself plain only to you except when he cut loose that time with his fool six-shooter. I thought he was further in the brush. Why didn't you make a chance to talk?"

"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to me why I should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been dragged out here in the dead of night?"

"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather discouraged tones; "I just thought as how mebbe you was still feeling friendly-like. My mistake. But I reckon you won't be giving me away anyhow?"

During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip pocket a frayed bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his hat and mopped his brow.

The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to the mingled rays of the fire and the moon the man's full features. Heretofore, Bob had been able to see indistinctly only the meagre facts of a heavy beard and clear eyes.

"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and leaping forward with both hands outstretched.

P

XI

OLLOCK took his hands, but stared at him puzzled. "Surely!" he said at last. His clear blue eyes

slowly widened and became bigger. "Honest! Didn't you know me! Is that what ailed you, Bobby? I thought you'd done clean gone back on me; and I sure always remembered you for a friend!"

"Know you!" shouted Bob. "Why, you eternal old fool, how should I know you?"

"You might have made a plumb good guess."

"Oh, sure!" said Bob; "easiest thing in the world. Guess that the first shadow you see in the woods is a man you thought was in Mexico."

"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock earnestly. "Sure pop?"

"How should I know?" asked Bob again.

George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.

“I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he threattened; "I've done sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't he never give you none of them?"

"Who; Jack?"

"That's the whelp."

Bob laughed.

"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him for a year. Nary message!"

"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell you."

"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain people," said Bob. "They're right. How could they know?"

"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly. "But I done told them you was my friend. And I thought you'd gone back on me sure."

"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.

George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the coffee pot at the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted on his heels. Bob tossed him a sack of tobacco which he caught. "Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob at length.

"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back." "Yes," said Bob after a time.

"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't so bad that-a-way at first. I was desp'rit. Took a job punching with a cow outfit near Nogales. Worked myself plumb out every day, and slept hard all night, and woke up in the morning to work myself plumb out again."

He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop his pipe bowl. After a dozen deep puffs, he continued: "Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the people. All I knew was brands and my hosses. Did good enough cow work, I reckon. For a fact, it was mebbe half a year before I begun to look around. That country is worse than over Panamit way. There's no trees; there's no water; there's no green grass; there's no folks; there's no nothin'! The mountains look like they're made of paper. After about a half year, as I said, I took note of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell difference did it make to me what the country was like? I hadn't no theories to that. I'd left all that back here."

He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy unless it was necessary. Bob nodded. "Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places plain- like the falls at Cascadell - and smell things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever see. I thought I'd never want to see this country again; the far

ther I got away, the more things I'd forget. You understand."

Again Bob nodded.

"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I remembered. So one day I cashed in and come back." He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling over the fire.

"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells good; it tastes good. For a while that did me well enough. I used to sneak down nights and look at my old place. . . . In summer I go back to Jim and the cattle, but it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker, and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."

"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.

"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on livin' this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since I have been living here it seems like well, I ain't no call as I can see it to desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.

"You needn't explain," said Bob.

George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.

"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?" "There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob, after reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You can give yourself up to the authorities and plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."

"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest attention.

"The other is simply to go back home."

"They'd arrest me."

"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you don't have to incriminate yourself; I doubt if a jury would agree on convicting you. Have you ever talked with anybody about about that morning?"

"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly. "No. A man don't ask about those things."

"Not even to Jim?"

"No. We just sort of took all that for granted."

"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called on the stand, they can tell nothing. There are at least no witnesses to the deed itself."

Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning. "But you won't testify agin me?"

"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody even knows I was out of bed at that time. If my name happens to be mentioned - which isn't at all likely — Auntie Belle or a dozen others will volunteer that I was in bed, like the rest of the town. There's no earthly reason to connect me with it."

"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer. "Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob soberly; "it'll be under oath, you know."

Pollock looked at him strangely askant.

"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said he. 'George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you any?"

"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.

"How much?"

"A hundred dollars or so."

"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help you on this."

"I don't need no help," said Pollock.