“George, George!” If ever a cry sounded a note of pain, that did. It made me wince. He whirled on his heel, and the dog-whip fell unheeded in the snow.
“Oh, oh,” she panted, “I can’t take that. It isn’t mine. It’s blood-money. And—and if you go by yourself, I shall go with you.”
“With me,” he held her by the shoulder, looking down into her upturned face. Never before had I seen such a variety of expression on his features, in so short a span of time, hope, tenderness, puzzlement, a panorama of emotions. “I’m an outlaw. There’s a price on my head—you know that. And you yourself have said—ah, I won’t repeat the things you have said. You know—you knew you were stabbing me when——”
“I know, I know!” she cried. “I believed those things then. Oh, you can’t tell how it hurt me to think that all the time you had been playing a double part—fooling my father and myself. But now I know. I know the whole wretched business; or at least enough to understand. I got into his papers back there on the Sicannie. There were things that amazed me—after that—I stormed at him till he told me the truth; part of it. You don’t know how sorry I am for those horrible, unwomanly things I said to you. How could I know? He lied so consistently—even at the last he lied to me—told me that the Company men had taken the post by surprise, that we were lucky to get away with our lives. I believed that until I saw you find that money. Then I knew that he had sold you out—his partner. I’ve been a little beast,” she sobbed, “and I’ve been afraid to tell you. Oh, you don’t know how much I wanted to tell you; but I was afraid. I’m not afraid now. If you are going to strike out alone, I shall go, too.”
He bent and kissed her gravely.
“The Northwest is no place for me, Jess,” he said. “I cannot cross it in the winter without being seen or trailed, and there is no getting out of that jail-break, if I am caught. I must go over the mountains, and so to the south, where there are no Police. You cannot come. Bolton, and—and Bob will see you safe to St. Louis. If nothing happens I shall be there in the spring.”
She laid her head against his breast and sobbed, wailing over him before us all. I bit my lip at the sight, and putting my pride in my pocket went over to them.
“Barreau,” I said, “I don’t, and probably never will, understand a woman. You win, and I wish you luck. But unless you hold a grudge longer than I do, there’s no need for you to play a lone hand. Let the dead past bury its dead, and we will all go over the mountains together. I have no wish to take a chance with the Police again, myself. You and Bolton seem to forget that I’m just as deep in the mud as you are in the mire.”
Barreau stood looking fixedly at me for a few seconds. Then he held out his hand, and the old, humorous smile that had been absent from his face for many a day once more wrinkled the corners of his mouth.
“Bob,” he said, “I reckon that you and I are hard men to beat—at any game we play.”