“I can drive,” exclaimed Jean, reaching for the whip, which she handled with the skill of a freighter, finishing her flourishes with a series of snaps at the end of a deerskin cracker, like the explosion of a bunch of fire-crackers.
“If we’ll take this cut-off, we’ll come out a mile or more ahead of the wagons,” said the trader. “Then we can rest by the roadside till they catch up.”
The Captain strode by his side in silence.
“Don’t you know me, John?” asked the stranger, grasping him by the arm, and speaking in a hoarse whisper.
Captain Ranger eyed him earnestly, his cheeks paling.
“Can it be possible that you are—Joe?” he asked, seizing his hand with a vise-like grip.
“I am indeed your brother Joe,—an outlaw, now and always.”
“No, you are not an outlaw; the fellow over whom you got into that trouble is alive and well. You’d have got out of that scrape all right if you hadn’t jumped your bail and left all the rest of us in the lurch. Why didn’t you stand your trial, like a man?”
John Ranger’s feelings overcame him, and he sank upon the ground, filled with old-time memories. He buried his face in his hands. Time and distance faded away, and he saw, with eyes of memory, the gentle, fading face of his toiling, uncomplaining wife, whose life had been for years a sacrifice to penury through the debt entailed by this brother’s cowardice.
“Do you mean to tell me that Elmer Edson is not dead?”