“Her daughter and her might have been thinkin' mighty hard about each other just then,” he pursued. “But Steve is dead. Finished. You cert'nly don't believe there's anything more?”
“I wish I could,” I told him.
“No, I'm satisfied. Heaven didn't never interest me much. But if there was a world of dreams after you went—” He stopped himself and turned his searching eyes away from mine. “There's a heap o' darkness wherever you try to step,” he said, “and I thought I'd left off wasting thoughts on the subject. You see”—he dexterously roped a horse, and once more his splendid sanity was turned to gold by his imagination—“I expect in many growed-up men you'd call sensible there's a little boy sleepin'—the little kid they onced was—that still keeps his fear of the dark. You mentioned the dark yourself yesterday. Well, this experience has woke up that kid in me, and blamed if I can coax the little cuss to go to sleep again! I keep a-telling him daylight will sure come, but he keeps a-crying and holding on to me.”
Somewhere far in the basin there was a faint sound, and we stood still.
“Hush!” he said.
But it was like our watching the dawn; nothing more followed.
“They have shot that bear,” I remarked.
He did not answer, and we put the saddles on without talk. We made no haste, but we were not over half an hour, I suppose, in getting off with the packs. It was not a new thing to hear a shot where wild game was in plenty; yet as we rode that shot sounded already in my mind different from others. Perhaps I should not believe this to-day but for what I look back to. To make camp last night we had turned off the trail, and now followed the stream down for a while, taking next a cut through the wood. In this way we came upon the tracks of our horses where they had been galloping back to the camp after their fright. They had kicked up the damp and matted pine needles very plainly all along.
“Nothing has been here but themselves, though,” said I.
“And they ain't showing signs of remembering any scare,” said the Virginian.