Yet when he turned on his heel and passed from the lighted area he unconsciously walked out of range of a revolver aimed at his breast—thereby temporarily settling for the man who fingered the trigger his question, “to shoot or not to shoot.”
For Private Grant, a fleeing deserter, convalescent from fever and lunacy, had been casting up the chances of his own life just then and debating the dangers and advantages of letting Spurrier live. Recognizing his former officer as he himself looked out of his hiding, his first impulse had been one of panic terror and in Spurrier he had seen a pursuer.
The finger had twitched nervously on the trigger—then while he wavered in decision the other had calmly walked out of range. Now, if he kept out of sight until they reached Frisco, the deserter told himself, a larger territory would spread itself for his escape than the confines of a steamer, and he belonged to a race that can bide its time.
CHAPTER IV
Spurrier entered the smoke room and stood for a moment in its threshold.
There were uniforms there, and some men in them whom he had known, though now these other-time acquaintances avoided his eye and the necessity of an embarrassment which must have come from meeting it.
But from an alcove seat near the door rose a stocky gentleman, well groomed and indubitably distinguished of guise, who had been tearing the covering from a bridge deck.
“Spurrier, my boy,” he exclaimed cordially, “I’m glad to see you. I read your name on the list. Won’t you join us?”