There was a sound of deep breathing from the bunk; it produced a similar conscious excitement in the speaker. He halted, recovered himself, and continued:—
“After my father's disappearance, my mother had a distinct presentiment—it haunted her for years—that something had happened to him at a place called One Man Station. Did you ever know the place?”
“I might have.” The words came huskily.
“Father had left her at this place, and to her knowledge he never came back. But she had this intimation—and suffered from it—that he did come back and was foully dealt with there—wronged in body or mind. The place had most evil associations for her; it was not strange she should have connected it with the great disaster of her life. As you lay talking to yourself in your fever, you took me back on that lost trail that ended, as we thought, in the grave. But we might have been mistaken. Is there anything it would not be safe for you and me to speak of now? Do you know any tie between men that should be closer than the tie between us? Any safer place where a man could lay off the secret burdens of his life and be himself for a little while—before the end answers all? I know you have a secret. I believe that a share of it belongs to me.”
“We are better off sometimes if we don't get all that belongs to us,” said John gratingly.
“It doesn't seem to be a matter of choice, does it? If you were not meant to tell me—what you have partly told me already—where is there any meaning in our being here at all? Let us have some excuse for this senseless accident. Do you believe much in accidents? How foolish”—Paul sighed—“for you and me to be afraid of each other! Two men who have parted with everything but the privilege of speaking the truth!”
The packer raised himself in his bunk slowly, like one in pain. He looked long at the listless figure crouching by the fire; then he sank back again with a low groan. “What was it you heared me say? Come!”
“I can't give you the exact words. The words were nothing. Haven't you watched the sparks blow up, at night, when the wind goes searching over the ashes of an old camp-fire? It was the fever made you talk, and your words were the sparks that showed where there had been fire once. Perhaps I had no right to track you by your own words when you lay helpless, but I couldn't always leave you. Now I'd like to have my share of that—whatever it was—that hurt you so, at One Man Station.”
“You ought to been a lawyer,” said the packer, releasing his breath. There was less strain in his voice. It broke with feeling. “You put up a mighty strong case for your way of looking at it. I don't say it's best. There, if you will have it! Sonny—my son! It—it's like startin' a snow-slide.”
The sick man broke down and sobbed childishly.