He had ever been inclined to look forward rather than backward—to put each day's happenings behind him as mere incidents in his general progress—and he began to realize that these happenings had accumulated to a bulk that could not be ignored, if the fresh start that he contemplated were to be made successfully. He recalled how he had felt when he had squared himself with Roth for that six-gun. But the surreptitious taking of the six-gun had been rather a mistake than a deliberate intent to steal. And Pete tried to justify himself with the thought that all his subsequent trouble had been the result of mistakes due to conditions thrust upon him by a fate which had slowly driven him to his present untenable position—that of a fugitive from the law, without money and without friends. He came to the bitter conclusion that his whole life had been a mistake—possibly not through his own initiative, but a mistake nevertheless. He knew that his only course was to retrace and untangle the snarl of events in which his feet were snared. Accustomed to rely upon his own efforts—he had always been able to make his living—he suddenly realized the potency of money; that money could alleviate suffering, influence authority, command freedom—at least temporary freedom—and even in some instances save life itself.
Yet it was characteristic of Pete that he did not regret anything that he had done, in a moral sense. He had made mistakes—and he would have to pay for them—but only once. He would not make these mistakes again. A man was a fool who deliberately rode his horse into the same box cañon twice.
Pete wondered if his letter to Jim Bailey had been received and what Bailey's answer would be. The letter must have reached Bailey by this time. And then Pete thought of The Spider's note, advising him to call at the Stockmen's Security; and of The Spider's peculiar insistence that he do so—that Hodges would "use him square."
Pete wondered what it all signified. He knew that The Spider had money deposited with the Stockmen's Security. The request had something to do with money, without doubt. Perhaps The Spider had wished him to attend to some matter of trust—for Pete was aware that The Spider had trusted him, and had said so, almost with his last breath. But Pete hesitated to become entangled further in The Spider's affairs. He did not intend to make a second mistake of that kind.
Monday of the following week Pete was out on the veranda—listening to little Ruth, a blue-eyed baby patient who as gravely explained the mysteries of a wonderful puzzle game of pasteboard cows and horses and a farmyard "most all cut to pieces," as Ruth said, when Doris stepped from the hall doorway and, glancing about, finally discovered Pete in the far corner of the veranda—deeply absorbed in searching for the hind leg of a noble horse to which little Ruth had insisted upon attaching the sedate and ignoble hind quarters of a maternal cow. So intent were they upon their game that neither of them saw Doris as she moved toward them, nodding brightly to many convalescents seated about the veranda.
"Whoa!" said Pete, as Ruth disarranged the noble steed in her eagerness to fit the bit of pasteboard Pete had handed to her. "Now, I reckon he'll stand till we find that barn-door and the water-trough. Do you reckon he wants a drink?"
"He looks very firsty," said Ruth.
"Mebby he's hungry, too,"—and Pete found the segment of a mechanically correct haystack.
"No!" cried Ruth positively, taking the bit of haystack from Pete; "wet's put some hay in his house."
"Then that there cow'll git it—and she's plumb fed up already."