“You will not change your mind?” said the Virginian by the fire. “It is thirty-five miles.”
I shook my head, feeling a certain shame that he should see how unnerved I was.
He swallowed a hot cupful, and after it sat thinking; and presently he passed his hand across his brow, shutting his eyes. Again he poured out a cup, and emptying this, rose abruptly to his feet as if shaking himself free from something.
“Let's pack and quit here,” he said.
Our horses were in the corral and our belongings in the shelter of what had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He collected them in silence while I saddled my own animal, and in silence we packed the two packhorses, and threw the diamond hitch, and hauled tight the slack, damp ropes. Soon we had mounted, and as we turned into the trail I gave a look back at my last night's lodging.
The Virginian noticed me. “Good-by forever!” he interpreted.
“By God, I hope so!”
“Same here,” he confessed. And these were our first natural words this morning.
“This will go well,” said I, holding my flask out to him; and both of us took some, and felt easier for it and the natural words.
For an hour we had been shirking real talk, holding fast to the weather, or anything, and all the while that silent thing we were keeping off spoke plainly in the air around us and in every syllable that we uttered. But now we were going to get away from it; leave it behind in the stable, and set ourselves free from it by talking it out. Already relief had begun to stir in my spirits.