"I can't go wrong, and--thank you, Keller!"
After Aldous had gone, Peter Keller sat for some time in deep thought.
"Now I wonder what the devil there can be about a grave to make him so
happy," he grumbled, listening to the whistle that was growing fainter down
the trail.
And Aldous, alone, with the moon straight above him as he went back to the
Miette Plain, felt, in truth, this night had become brighter for him than
any day he had ever known. For he knew that Peter Keller was not a man to
make a statement of which he was not sure. Mortimer FitzHugh was dead. His
bones lay under the slab up in that little blind canyon in the shadow of
the Saw Tooth Mountain. To-morrow he would tell Joanne. And, blindly, he
told himself that she would be glad.
Still whistling, he passed the Chinese laundry shack on the creek, crossed
the railroad tracks, and buried himself in the bush beyond. A quarter of an
hour later he stole quietly into Stevens' camp and went to bed.
CHAPTER IX
Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the
river, slept uneasily. He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged
himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John
Aldous on his knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into
a frying-pan.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108