The One-Way Trail Part 58

Something of this was pa.s.sing through the man's mind as he hungrily devoured the beauty, which for so long had held him its slave.

It was nearly two months since the happenings which had so nearly ended Jim Thorpe's earthly career. Two months during which he had honestly struggled to regain that footing he had once held in the district. And now the fall was advancing, and the hopes of winning through with the people of the place seemed as far off as ever.

Prejudice still clung. Barnriff, willing enough to accept his actual innocence on the double charges made against him, still could not forget that he had helped the real thief to escape. It mattered nothing to them that in the end the man had died a violent death. He had been helped to escape--their justice. So there was no employment of any sort in Barnriff for Jim Thorpe. And Eve, too, was only completing orders which had been placed with her weeks before.

"There," she said, raising her needle and removing the stuff from beneath it. "I hate it, and I'm glad it's done."

She looked up with a smile to encounter the dark eyes of Jim Thorpe.

"You?" she cried, in a tone that should have made him glad. "Why, I thought surely it was Annie. But there, I might have known. Annie would not have sat silent so long. You see she was coming over for a gossip. But I s'pose it's too early for her."

Jim noticed now that something of the old happy light was in her eyes again. That joyous light which he had not seen in them for nearly a year. What a wonderful thing was youth.

"I saw her as I came along," he said slowly. "She said she'd come _after_ supper. She sent her love, and said she was going to bring a s.h.i.+rt-waist to get fixed."

"The dear thing! It's the one thing that makes my life here possible, Jim. I mean her friends.h.i.+p. She's the only one in all the village that can forget things. I mean among the women." She came round the table and sat on its edge facing him, staring out of the window at the ruddy sunset with eyes that had suddenly become shadowed with regret. "Men aren't like that, it seems to me. They're fierce, and violent, and all that, but most of them have pretty big hearts when their anger is past."

Jim's eyes smiled whimsically.

"Do you think so?" he said. "Guess maybe I won't contradict you, but it seems to me I've learned pretty well how large their hearts are--in the last two months."

"You mean--you can get no work?"

The man nodded. But he had no bitterness now. He had learned his lesson from Peter Blunt. He had no blame for the weaknesses of human nature. Why should he have? Who was he to judge?

There was a silence for some moments. Eve continued to gaze at the sunset. The glorious ever-changing lights held her physical vision, but her mind was traveling in that realm of woman's thought, whither no mere man can follow it.

It was Jim who spoke at last.

"But I didn't come to--to air troubles," he said thoughtfully. "I came to tell you of two things. One of 'em is Peter. He's packing his wagon. He goes at sun-up to-morrow. He says he must move on--keep moving. He says all that held him to Barnriff is finished with, so now there's nothing left but to hit the trail."

"Poor old Peter!" Eve murmured softly. "I s'pose he means the gold business?"

"Maybe," replied the man, without conviction.

"Why--what do you mean?"

Eve's eyes were widely questioning. The other shrugged.

"You can't tell. It's hard to get at what's pa.s.sing through his quaint mind. I don't think gold interests him as much as you'd think. Peter has plenty of money. Do you know, he offered to advance me ten thousand dollars to buy up a ranch around here. He pressed it on me, and tried to make out it would be a favor to him if I took it. Said I didn't know how much I'd be obliging him. He's a good man. A--a wonderful man. I tried to get him to stop on--but----"

"I don't blame him for going," said Eve, regretfully.

"Nor do I."

Again that silence fell, and each was busy with thoughts they neither could easily have expressed.

"What's the other?" Eve inquired presently. "You said--two things."

"Did I? Oh, yes, of course."

But Jim did not at once tell her the other reason for his visit.

Instead he sat thinking of many things, and all his thoughts were centred round her. He was thinking the honest thoughts of a man who loves a woman so well that he shrinks from offering her so little of worldly goods as he possesses. He had come there, as a man will come, to hover round and burn his fingers at the fire which he has not the courage to turn his back upon. He had come there to tell her that he was going away, even as Peter was going--going away to make one more of those many starts which it had been his lot to make in the past.

"Well?" Eve faced him with smiling eyes. She understood that his second reason was troubling him, and she wanted to encourage him.

He shook his head.

"It isn't a sc.r.a.p 'well,'" he said, with an attempt at a lightness he did not feel.

"Nothing can be so bad, as--as some things," she said. Her eyes had become serious again. She was thinking of those two short months ago.

"No," he breathed, with a sigh. "I--I suppose not." Then with a desperate effort he blurted out his resolve. "I'm going away, too," he said clumsily.

His announcement cost him more than he knew. But Eve showed not the least bit of astonishment.

"I knew you would," she said. Then she added, as though following out a thought which had been hers for a long time, "You see there are some things n.o.body can put up with--for long. Barnriff, for instance, when it turns against you."

Jim nodded. Her understanding delighted him, and he went on more easily.

"I've one hundred and fifty head of stock, and a thousand odd dollars," he said deliberately. "I'm going to make a fresh start."

He laughed, and somehow his laugh hurt the woman. She understood.

"Don't laugh like that, Jim," she said gently. "It's--it's not like you."

"I'm sorry, Eve," he replied in swift contrition. "But--but it's not much, is it?"

"I seem to fancy it's quite a deal." The girl's face wore a delightful smile. "Where are you thinking of?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We've just come over to say that we, too, are going to hit the trail."]

"Canada. Edmonton. It's a longish piece off, but it's good land--and cheap."

"It's British."

"Ye-es."

"It's not under the 'stars and stripes.'"

"Most flags are made of bunting."

The girl nodded her head.

"A monarchy, too," she said.

"Monarchs and presidents are both men."