Westcott had been in Blue Gulch for more than a year. He had drifted out of Phoenix after the Barker affair, glad to get away, where he was sure no one knew of the matter.
There had been no question about Barker’s guilt. Jim Texas swore to having seen him knife Lundy. He couldn’t have saved him if he had stayed, Westcott told himself. He had never understood why they had not hung the fellow, instead of sentencing him for life.
“Better have done it outright than to kill him by inches in their hell of a jail,” he thought.
But now what was to be done with the man? Westcott stood scowling at a house down the gulch. There was a light inside that threw upon the canvas side-wall the gigantic figure of a woman, coughing. It reminded him unpleasantly of Barker.
“Damn the fellow,” he muttered. “Wha’d he come up here for, anyway? He’ll never live to get back east.” He walked on, turning up the collar of his coat. “It’s coming winter. The cold’ll kill him.”
Again he stood pondering, while one by one the lights down the gulch went out. Then he bethought himself of his errand and went stumbling down Lower Broadway in the dark.
The storekeeper was just closing up, but the young fellow turned back to wait upon him.
“I won’t keep you more’n a minute, Farthing,” he said, and proceeded to buy bread and cheese, a tin of meat and a couple of bottles of beer. A little package of tea was an after-thought.
“Going prospecting, Mr. Westcott?” the clerk asked, as he made up the packages.
“Maybe,” was the reply.