They had come to a ridge overlooking a valley, a sort of ravine, through which a small stream picked its straggling course between the hills. Dusk had already set in and the stream was only faintly visible.
Without announcing her intentions, Cherry dropped her bridle-rein and left her horse standing on the trail while she led the way to a knoll that commanded a better view of the ravine. For a long time she stood looking to the westward where only a faint arc of light was still left low upon the horizon. Her hat was in her hand and the quiet breeze that came from the east blew a few loose locks of her dark hair about her face. King gazed at her intently, and thought of McCartney.
He had picked up a stout tamarac stick on his way to the knoll. It was almost as thick as his wrist and was sound and dry. Without speaking a word and without twitching a muscle of his face he slowly bent the stick in his two hands until it began to snap. Then he twisted it until the frayed ends parted and he held the two ragged bits of stick in his hands. These he flung into a clump of bushes on the slope below.
Cherry looked at him quietly.
"No," she said slowly, "not that—not that. Some day it may have to come—some day I may call you—but not yet."
King smiled gravely.
"I told you last night about my brother, Dick," he said. "Well—Dick is dead."
"King!"
She had never before called him by his first name.
"Yes—I had a letter last night. It was waiting for me when I got down. But that's all gone now—it's past and settled. But this other thing—it has mixed me some. I didn't think I'd ever want to hit a man again. And I'm not looking for McCartney—not for any man," he said, and his eyes turned to the spot where he had thrown the broken stick. "But no man ever found me running—and Bill McCartney won't."