A little later, he spoke again, reflectively:
"I wonder what he did!"
"What he did!" Nell repeated, bewildered.
"Whether he robbed a bank, or just murdered somebody," Jack explained.
Nell flared.
"He's not that sort!" she flung at him. Then, her eyes grew dreamy again.
"But," she added—and there was a note of sympathetic tenderness in her voice—"perhaps it was something that somebody else did."
"Eh?" Jack demanded, perplexed in his turn.
"I mean," Nell said, half-apologetically, "perhaps it was something—some crime even—some one else did that made Mr. Maxwell come away off here, to live alone in the mountains. A man like him!"
Next morning, Jack and Nell went on their way, almost regretfully, so great was the impression made upon both by this man whom they had rescued from death. Still without haste, Jack drove his dogs over the level valley-crust. As it drew toward night, he selected for his camp a point where a few stunted spruce grew a little way up the slope.