They were standing face to face in the trail. For once Bruce was glad of his unusual height. He did not have to raise his eyes greatly to look squarely into Simon's. Both faces were flushed, both set; and the eyes of the older man brightened slowly.
"I am interested," Simon replied. "You're a tenderfoot. You're fresh from cities. You're going up there to learn things that won't be any pleasure to you. You're going into the real mountains—a man's land such as never was a place for tenderfeet. A good many things can happen up there. A good many things have happened up there. I warn you—go back!"
Bruce smiled, just the faint flicker of a smile, but Simon's eyes narrowed when he saw it. The dark face lost a little of its insolence. He knew men, this huge son of the wilderness, and he knew that no coward could smile in such a moment as this. He was accustomed to implicit obedience and was not used to seeing men smile when he uttered a threat. "I've come too far to go back," Bruce told him. "Nothing can turn me."
"Men have been turned before, on trails like this," Simon told him. "Don't misunderstand me. I advised you to go back before, and I usually don't take time or trouble to advise any one. Now I tell you to go back. This is a man's land, and we don't want any tenderfeet here."
"The trail is open," Bruce returned. It was not his usual manner to speak in quite this way. He seemed at once to have fallen into the vernacular of the wilderness of which symbolic reference has such a part. Strange as the scene was to him, it was in some way familiar too. It was as if this meeting had been ordained long ago; that it was part of an inexorable destiny that the two should be talking together, face to face, on this winding mountain road. Memories—all vague, all unrecognized—thronged through him.
Many times, during the past years, he had wakened from curious dreams that in the light of day he had tried in vain to interpret. He was never able to connect them with any remembered experience. Now it was as if one of these dreams were coming true. There was the same silence about him, the dark forests beyond, the ridges stretching ever. There was some great foe that might any instant overwhelm him.
"I guess you heard me," Simon said; "I told you to go back."
"And I hope you heard me too. I'm going on. I haven't any more time to give you."
"And I'm not going to take any more, either. But let me make one thing plain. No man, told to go back by me, ever has a chance to be told again. This ain't your cities—up here. There ain't any policeman on every corner. The woods are big, and all kinds of things can happen in them—and be swallowed up—as I swallow these leaves in my hand."
His great arm reached out with incredible power and seized a handful of leaves off a near-by shrub. It seemed to Bruce that they crushed like fruit and stained the dark skin.