They parted there without another word. The man of the camp went back to his fire, and the man of the station to his shanty. Away below the camp the cañon was dense with shade, but far off up the valley one rod of blinding sunlight struck the most distant peak, and made its snows dazzle on the eye. The snow-peak shone for half an hour, and then by imperceptible changes mellowed to a clear pale gold. Then by fine gradations it grew to a pale rose, a deep rose, a cold gray, a solemn purple. By this time the sky beyond the peak was a fiery glory. This faded in turn, first in a gush of liquid amber, then in soft green, then in blue, then violet. A lone star scintillated over the for crest, went out, relit itself, went out again, twinkled for a time, and at last shone steadfast with a diamond lustre.
As the darkness gathered, the fire, which fora while gleamed more brightly, sank to a dull red, fading and brightening at the falling and rising of the wind, but growing with every minute less responsive to that soft influence.
The stars twinkled over the sky in myriads. The man of the camp threw away the stump of his last cigarette, entered his tent, pulled off his boots, rolled himself in a blanket, and lay down, facing the distant peak and the one shining speck of a world above it.
‘You have made a hideous muddle of things.’ he said at last—‘a hideous muddle. Nothing to fear, for everything has happened. Nothing to hope for, for nothing can happen any more. Fortune wasted, friends wasted, genius wasted, heart wasted, life wasted. Ah, well! I ought to sleep to-night; I’m tired.’
The torrent roared in the heart of the primeval silence. The peak and the star swam apart from each other in the solemn spaces of the sky. Under the tent, which showed ghostly in the starlight, the man lay silent for hours, but when next he spoke his voice was choked with tears.
‘Not that,’ he said—‘not that! I can endure the rest, but no repentance. To repent would drive me mad.’
II
Twice a day the mountains echoed to the clangour of the passing express train, and at intervals less settled and orderly to the slower rumble of luggage-trucks, laden or empty. The iron artery stretched from coast to coast, and here and there touched and fed a ganglion. To one living alone in those mountain fastnesses the roar and shriek and roll brought insistent memories of the world. No inmate of the oubliette could have been more lonely, and yet life was accessible, and even near.
A month went by. The solitary man of the camp fished and shot, ate, drank, wandered, slept, and saw no face and heard no voice. He had run out of supplies, and having pencilled a note to that effect, had slipped it, with a five-dollar bill, under the door of the railside shanty. His wants had been supplied—they extended to tea and biscuit only—and he had taken care to be out of the way. Sometimes he heard a distant shot, and knew that the man of the shanty was afoot in search of game. Within a very little distance of the railway track sport could be had in plenty.