“Gosh! it can’t be much of a job if you can tackle it—lookin’ like what you do!”
“I’ve been tramping for—for days, old man! Rather overdone the thing. I’m not so bad as I look.”
“Glad to hear it!” laconically.
“I’ll put up with you to-night, Jim, if you’ll take me in.” Truedale made an effort to smile.
“Provin’ there ain’t any hard feeling?”
“There never was, White. I—understood.”
“Shake!”
They got through the day somehow. The crust was forming over Truedale’s suffering; he no longer had any desire to let even White break through it. Once, during the afternoon, the sheriff spoke of Nella-Rose and without flinching Truedale listened.
“That gal will have Burke eatin’ out o’ her hand in no time. Lawson is all right at the kernel, all he needed was some one ter steady him. Once I made sure he’d married the gal, I felt right easy in my mind.”
“And you—did make sure, Jim? There was no doubt? I—I remember the pretty little thing; it would have been damnable to—to hurt her.”