“But I tell you I didn’t hurt a hair of his head! It was a choice between his life and mine, and I left him. It might not even have been a choice, for we should both have perished. If I had stayed, I should have died with him. It would have been heroic—but I didn’t. How many men would?”
“Did he leave Rayburn?”
Faunce reddened.
“No. He had a kind of bull-headed obstinacy—he would stay.”
“Ah! You tried to dissuade him?”
“I told him that we were risking all three lives, instead of one, by staying.”
“But he stayed?”
“He offered to stay alone. I stayed with him.”
“Had you the means to leave him? How about the dog-train?”
“We were short—one of the dogs had died; but the madness hadn’t seized me then. I helped him to the last. We were together when we buried Rayburn.”