“The only things you need, Colin,” cried Wade, advancing towards him, “are good-will and friendship, and both are in the hand I give you.”
At the door he turned.
“Will you wait until I come back, Colin?” he asked. “I would like to stand up with you when you are married—Nina Ide and I.”
“I’ll wait, Mr. Wade,” returned the other, tears of gratitude springing to his eyes. “And may luck go with you in this business.”
That fervent wish, put again into words, followed him next morning when he departed from Castonia. This time it was Tommy Eye who said it—Tommy Eye, fresh down with the rear of the drive, and a very timorous and apprehensive figure of an outlaw. But he seemed to be a little disappointed after Wade had assured him that the matter of Blunder Lake dam would be assumed by the Enchanted Company, and that Tommy himself had nothing to fear.
“I reckon you can do it, Mr. Wade. You can do most anything you set out to,” sighed Tommy. “Howsomever, I kind of figgered on that outlaw business to keep me away from down-river. The city ain’t good for the likes of me. They begin to rattle the keys of the calaboose the minute I get off’n the train.”
“Tommy,” commanded Wade, severely, “don’t you go down-river this season. You stay here and attend to the work we’ve got marked out for you.”
“That’s just as good a wheel-trig as the outlaw proposition would be,” declared Tommy, his face clearing. “Orders from you settles things, Mr. Wade. Here I stay.”
On the morning of his departure Rodburd Ide’s daughter walked with Wade to the store, where the stage started. In the days of their late intimacy the girl had grown into his heart. The sincerity of a sister, self-reliance and womanly sympathy had characterized her attitude towards him from the first; and she had welcomed a friendship which lifted her to a comrade’s level. She was as yet an altruist in matters of the heart; she frankly and openly interested herself only in the loves of others.
Wade knew all the unspoken words that her sympathy dictated when, standing out before them all, she clasped his hand before he clambered over the wheel of the old stage.