"Isn't there a possibility that I can do neither?"
"I can help you to do the first,—and for the other I can only plead. I know what you would say: that the man had forfeited his right; that he tried to kill you; that by all the laws of man's inventing this money is yours. But God's right and your debt to your own manhood are above all these. As your poor debtor, I'm privileged to ask large things of you; can't you break the teeth of it and shake yourself free of the money-dragon?"
Jeffard is afoot, tramping a monotonous sentry beat between the wagon and the fire. His rejoinder is a question.
"Do you know where James Garvin is to be found?"
"I don't, but Bartrow does."
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"Because Dick is merciful. The man is a criminal, and you could send him to the penitentiary."
"And Dick thought—and you have thought—that I would prosecute him. It was the natural inference, I suppose,—from your point of view. The man who would rob his partner wouldn't stumble over a little thing like that. Will it help you to sleep the sounder if I say that vengeance isn't in me?—wasn't in me even in the white heat of it?"
Lansdale nods assent. "I'm on the asking hand, and any concession is grateful. If you were vindictive about it, I'm afraid the major contention would be hopeless."
"But as it is you do not despair?"