For a time she lost the thread of his rambling talk, busied with her own thoughts. She was faintly aware that for luncheon he had been eating a biscuit, a thick, soggy, dangerous biscuit, caught up in the hurry of the morning's packing, wrenched in half and sopped in bacon grease. There was a word about shooting. He was learning to "hold down" the Colt's 44, and had almost hit a coyote. Later, words reached her of a cold night on the divide, when ice formed in the pail by the cooking fire. What at last brought her back was a yawn and his remark that he must "hole up" for the night.
"Clarence," she began, looking far into a little white-hot chamber between two half-burned logs, "listen, please, and advise me. If you were going to do something that might, just possibly, and not by any means certainly, rake up rather an ugly mess, in a sort of remote way—that might make some people uncomfortable, you understand—I mean if you saw something that ought to be done, because the person deserved it, and it was by no means that person's fault, not in the least, and the person didn't even know about it nor suspect anything, would you stop because it might be painful to some one else—just possibly it might—or to a number of people, or even to the person himself, after he knew it? Or would you go ahead and trust to luck, especially when there's a chance that it mightn't ever come out?—though I'm quite sure it's true, you see, and that's what makes it so hard to know what to do."
She looked up at him with bright expectancy. Clutching his head with both hands, he stared at her, alarm leaping in his eyes.
"Would you mind repeating that slowly?" he began, in hushed, stricken tones. "No, no—I shouldn't ask that. One moment, please—now it all comes back to me. I see in fancy the dear old home, and hear faithful Rover barking his glad welcome. Ah, now I have the answer; I knew it would come. It's because one is a toiler of the sea and the other is a soiler of the tea—then the ball is snapped back for a run around the end and the man on third must return to his base."
"I might have known you couldn't understand," she said regretfully; "but I can't possibly be more explicit. I thought if I stated the case clearly in the abstract—but I dare say it's a waste of time to ask advice in such matters."
"You've wasted yours, my child, if that's the last chance I get. Do you really want help about something?"
"No, dear, it wasn't anything. Never mind."
"All right, if you say so. And now, me for the blankets!"
When he had gone she stepped out into the night under the close, big stars. She breathed deeply of the thin, sharp air and looked over at the luminous pearl of a moon that seemed to hang above the cabin where Ewing's kid would doubtless be dreaming. Her lips fell into a little smile, half cynical, half tender.
"I'll do it anyway!" The inflection was defiant, but the words were scarcely more than a whisper. She said them again, giving them tone.