“You seem to have got a new appreciation of the scout.”
“Well, you’d have, if you had seen him lift that can of blasting powder above his head when he was expecting it to go off every second, and throw it farther than I could throw a ten-pound weight. I tell you a man that’s got nerve and strength like that is too many for Ike.”
“All right, lead the way; I feel better after eating, but I’m so tired and sore I can’t go fast or far. I wish you’d got hold of more grub.”
“I did, and a can of powder, and started with them, but when I saw Cody dig out my blast and throw it away I lost my nerve and dropped everything. I knew then it was no use for me to try to do him, and all I thought of was getting as much space between me and him as possible.”
“You are gone bad, aren’t you?” said Price.
The pair clambered away over the rocks, slipping and sliding in the darkness and muttering bitter anathemas because of their misfortunes.
In their case, as in all others, the way of the transgressor is hard. If the hardships are not physical and apparent to the world, they are mental, and the one who defies the laws of God and man is undergoing torture which he is too great a moral coward to admit. The right way is not only the best way, but the easiest way, and if reward does not come in dollars and cents, it comes in the satisfaction of knowing that one has done his best.
Price still held to his nerve, while Ike’s had been shattered by one incident—the demonstration of a brave man that he has no fear to do right, whatever the consequences.
Price was suffering physical torture and readily admitted it to his partner in crime, but he had not weakened to a degree that would cause him to admit, even to Bloody Ike, that he feared for the future, other than for its physical discomforts.
“Look out!” cried Ike, who was in the lead, suddenly. He clung to a stunted evergreen and saved himself from plunging down a dark chasm, which yawned at his feet.