"My dear," he said feebly. She washed his wounds and bound them up. She cried softly over his pain, which was so much less than her own.
"I've been a brute to you," he mumbled. "But God help me I'll be that no more."
"You've always loved me," she said. It was true in spite of everything.
"Yes," said old Ned. Then he fell asleep and woke in an hour and wandered a little in his talk. But she soothed him into peace again and he rested quietly. Yet she could not leave him to get help till next morning, and when she went over to their nearest neighbour, Missouri Simpson, he was away from home. It was noon when he returned and rode into Kamloops for the doctor. He told the police what had happened, and found that someone had already brought into town Ned's gun and told them of the horse. They telegraphed to all stations to the Coast to hold a certain Sitcum Siwash, known as Pitt River Pete. But by that time Pete was in hiding on the south side of the Fraser, over against the Mill, with a canoe, stolen from a house near Ruby Creek, where he had left the train. For it seemed to him that he could not escape if he went further. That he had not been arrested yet was a miracle.
"They'll catch me and hang me," he said with a snarl.
He felt sure they would and he had something to do before they did.
As he lay in the brush, across the river, he tried to pick out the lights of the house, high upon the hill, in which Jenny and George Quin lived.
XXI
The news that one Pitt River Pete was wanted by the police, by the "bulls," spread fast through the town and into Shack City. As soon as they heard, and as soon as Indian Annie was chuckling grossly over the possible delight of seeing Pete hanged, the police came down and searched every hole and corner in the sawdust swamp. They routed out Annie almost the first of the lot, and she screamed insults at them as they searched her den.