"Let us start now," urged Armstrong.
"Tain't possible," said the old man, taking another puff at his pipe, and only a glistening of the eye betrayed the joy that he felt; otherwise his phlegmatic calm was unbroken, his demeanor just as undisturbed as it always was. "We'd jest throw away our lives a wanderin' round these yere mountains in the dark, we've got to have light an' clear weather. Ef it should be snowin' in the mornin' we'd have to wait until it cleared."
"I won't wait a minute," cried Armstrong. "At daybreak, weather or no weather, I start."
"What's your hurry, Jim?" continued Kirkby calmly. "The gal's safe, one day more or less ain't goin' to make no difference."
"She's with another man," answered Armstrong quickly.
"Do you know this Newbold?" asked Maitland, looking at the note again.
"No, not personally, but I have heard of him."
"I know him," answered Kirkby quickly, "an' you've seed him too, Bob; he's the fellow that shot his wife, that married Louise Rosser."
"That man!"
"The very same."