The question called him back to present conditions with a sudden start.
“Elmer Edson is not dead, but Annie Ranger is!” he said hoarsely. “We had to leave her precious dust in the ground away back yonder in the Black Hills. We started together on this terrible journey, hoping to escape the consequences of that awful mortgage with which you left us in the lurch. She had denied herself many comforts and all the luxuries of life for a dozen years to feed the ever-eating cankerworm of interest. No, Joe, you didn’t kill Edson; but through my efforts to help you out of a trouble in which you should never have been entangled, you became accessory to the lingering death of my wife.”
“Don’t reproach me, John! I loved Annie like a sister. I did indeed. She was a sister to me from the day she became your wife. You don’t or won’t see how it grieves me to hear of her death.”
“Why didn’t you write to us, like a man?”
The brother had risen to his feet, and was pacing nervously to and fro, whittling aimlessly on a bit of sagebrush.
“I was afraid to write. There was a price upon my head, as you have no need to be informed.”
“Yes, Joe; and to pay the interest on that price was the bane of my existence for a dozen years. But you can write now. Our dear mother—God bless her!—would forget all the terrible past if she could hold you in her arms once more. It is your duty to return at once, and settle, as well as you can, for the trouble you have caused. You ought at least to lift that accursed mortgage from the farm, and let Lije Robinson and Sister Mary and our parents spend the remainder of their lives in peace. You are a free man, and can go where you please.”
“But I am not a free man, John. Even with that horrible load off my shoulders, I still am bound, hand and foot.”
“Are you married, Joe?”