Still no answer.
"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the morning?—say about ten o'clock."
"Yes. Will you have some supper?"
"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet. Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"
"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."
He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be tried for murder in the morning! What could he do? If David had not confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.
At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour, by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said, "So this is the end of it, David?"
"Yes. It is the end."
"You ought not to have run away."
"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have put you all right."