He drew his hand slowly across his eyes and moved back, leaning on the tower wall. So she thought that. She believed that he had contemplated self-destruction, and in that crude, spectacular way. And of course she attributed his reason to her rejection of him. He could have laughed aloud at his escape. "I promise," he answered. "I promise. I will leave it to Nature. When the time comes she can provide a way."
"Thank you, I trust you." She gave him her hand. "Good-by."
She hesitated, glancing once more at the outlaw, but of him she had nothing further to say. Stratton stood watching her down the trail; when she disappeared he moved to the edge of the cliff and waited for a final glimpse of her, far below in the canyon.
At last he noticed that his guide was ready. "Ride on with the pack-horses," he said. "I will overtake you in time to make Nisqually ford. And the next time you find a leaking can, Smith, be careful where you throw it."
When the man was gone he sank down on a rock and dropped his face in his hands. Finally he lifted his head and sat for an interval looking down the gorge in the direction she had taken. "She is so bright and quick," he told himself, "and yet she could not see the truth. With all of her knowledge of smuggling, and opium and rings, she has never seen or had a description of the stuff. It is strange, strange—for I went all to pieces, there, for a minute. It must be, after all, because she is so ready to take a man on trust. She is so tremendously honest herself, she won't accept a man's own doubt of himself. But I—I—had a narrow escape. Strange, too, what a hold she has had on me from the start. I would have braved it out, lied to a man; I would have laughed it off with any other woman; but she lifted her eyes, probing for that everlasting best in me, and I babbled like a fool."
Presently he drew a letter from his pocket. It was an answer to the one he had written the Judge. It had miscarried at first, and he had travelled so much the last weeks, it had been forwarded and missed him repeatedly. He had received it that morning at the Station on the prairie below the Myers claim. He opened the sheet and re-read it slowly.
"WASHINGTON, D.C., July 20th, 18—.
"MY DEAR STRATTON:—In response to your letter I want to remind you that I knew your father, John Stratton, well. He was a strong and capable man and always a gentleman. I am certainly interested in the career of his son. I also satisfied myself somewhat as to your standing, before I came East, because it is my custom to know about my nephew Philip's friends. I learned nothing of a disparaging nature.
"But in regard to the initial point of your letter, I can only say that a release from a marriage engagement should depend altogether on the direct request of the lady.
"Very truly yours,