“There’s no telling what a man might do when desperate and despondent,” he answered. “But I don’t believe he’d go without leaving some word, or at least making some disposition of his property in writing, in case he never returned. We’ll open his bags and see what we can find.”
They hurried forward to carry out this intention.
The doctor’s baggage consisted of his battered suitcase and the black bag which contained his instruments. Neither was locked, but neither contained any word to explain where he had gone, nor to give support to the belief that he had intended going anywhere.
Walker, whom Bentley and Agnes rejoined at the camp, sat pondering the information supplied by the girl concerning the doctor’s designs on the cañon.
“I’ll tell you,” he declared at length, as if talking to himself, “that man had the nerve to tackle it!”
Agnes looked at him, her face quickening.
“What do you know about him?” she asked.
“I know,” said Walker mysteriously, with no intention of bringing his own indiscretions up for the censure of June and her severe mother, “that he had courage enough to tackle anything. I’ve seen proof of that right here in Comanche, and I want to tell you people that doctor wasn’t any man’s coward.”
“Thank you for saying that,” blurted Agnes, wholly unintentionally, a glow of pride on her cheeks. 128
Mrs. Reed and June looked at her, the widow with a severe opening of her mouth, out of which no sound came; June with a smile behind her hand.