Wetherford, now that the danger of arrest was over, was disposed to be grimly humorous. “There’s no great loss without some small gain. I don’t think we’ll be troubled by any more visitors—not even by sheriffs or doctors. I reckon you and I are in for a couple of months of the quiet life—the kind we read about.”
Cavanagh, now that he was definitely out of the Forest Service, perceived the weight of every objection which his friends and relatives had made against his going into it. It was a lonely life, and must ever be so. It was all very well for a young unmarried man, who loved the woods and hills beyond all things else, and who could wait for advancement, but it was a sad place for one who desired a wife. The ranger’s place was on the trail and in the hills, and to bring a woman into these high silences, into these lone reaches of forest and fell, would be cruel. To bring children into them would be criminal.
All the next day, while Wetherford pottered about the cabin or the yard, Cavanagh toiled at his papers, resolved to leave everything in the perfect order which he loved. Whenever he looked round upon his belongings, each and all so redolent of the wilderness—he found them very dear. His chairs (which he had rived out of slabs), his guns, his robes, his saddles and their accoutrements—all meant much to him. “Some of them must go with me,” he said. “And when I am settled down in the old home I’ll have one room to myself which shall be so completely of the mountain America that when I am within it I can fancy myself back in the camp.”
He thought of South Africa as a possibility, and put it aside, knowing well that no other place could have the same indefinable charm that the Rocky Mountains possessed, for the reason that he had come to them at his most impressionable age. Then, too, the United States, for all their faults, seemed merely an extension of the English form of government.
Wetherford was also moving in deep thought, and at last put his perplexity into a question. “What am I to do? I’m beginning to feel queer. I reckon the chances for my having smallpox are purty fair. Maybe I’d better drop down to Sulphur and report to the authorities. I’ve got a day or two before the blossoms will begin to show on me.”
Cavanagh studied him closely. “Now don’t get to thinking you’ve got it. I don’t see how you could attach a germ. The high altitude and the winds up there ought to prevent infection. I’m not afraid for myself, but if you’re able, perhaps we’d better pull out to-morrow.”
Later in the day Wetherford expressed deeper dejection. “I don’t see anything ahead of me anyhow,” he confessed. “If I go back to the ‘pen’ I’ll die of lung trouble, and I don’t know how I’m going to earn a living in the city. Mebbe the best thing I could do would be to take the pox and go under. I’m afraid of big towns,” he continued. “I always was—even when I had money. Now that I am old and broke I daren’t go. No city for me.”
Cavanagh’s patience gave way. “But, man, you can’t stay here! I’m packing up to leave. Your only chance of getting out of the country is to go when I go, and in my company.” His voice was harsh and keen, and the old man felt its edge; but he made no reply, and this sad silence moved Cavanagh to repentance. His irritability warned him of something deeply changing in his own nature.
Approaching the brooding felon, he spoke gently and sadly. “I’m sorry for you, Wetherford, I sure am, but it’s up to you to get clear away so that Lee will never by any possible chance find out that you are alive. She has a romantic notion of you as a representative of the old-time West, and it would be a dreadful shock to her if she knew you as you are. It’s hard to leave her, I know, now that you’ve seen her, but that’s the manly thing to do—the only thing to do.”