For some moments Jim Pryse gazed up silently into the face of the stranger who had so unexpectedly become his benefactor. His emotion was such that for awhile the talk he had been bidden to seemed impossible. It was all a miracle—a veritable miracle. A few short hours ago the last shadow of hope had been extinguished. For days he had been wandering about interminable hills, with the thermometer more than ten below zero. His horse had long since been foundered and abandoned, while he essayed to reach some sort of shelter on foot. Oh, he had made his escape from Corporal McFardell surely enough, but the hell he had endured as the price of that escape had been something he had never thought that human body could endure.
The short days, the desperately long nights; no matches to kindle a fire, no blankets, nothing but the merciful sheepskin coat which the police had provided him with; no food of any sort, and only snow-water to drink; nothing, nothing but his will to flounder on through a world of snow and ice and a maddening sea of uninhabited hills. The terror of those last days had been almost insupportable. And only was it a sort of grim philosophy which had kept him going. A hundred times he could have lain down and let the temperature lull his weary, starving body and mind to that final peace which would have saved him from his agony. But he had kept to his weary feet, that, as he had told himself through his clenched teeth, he might go down fighting.
And now, now that was all behind him. The scars of it all were there. Those manacles. The bite of the frost upon his face and hands. Then the dreadful sense of bodily weariness. Even now he felt that the only thing he desired was sleep—just sleep. And yet——
No, there was no sleep yet. This man, this queer, unsmiling creature had offered him help, had given him food and had named no price. God! There was no price adequate that he could pay him. What was it? Where was the sign of this silent creature’s humanity? He passed a bandaged hand over his forehead and thrust his fur cap back.
Then he began to talk, and with talking the desire for sleep passed away. He talked to the man who sucked silently at his pipe and offered never a word of comment. And his talk was of that queer history which had brought him to the gates of the penitentiary. He told everything without any reservation, even to the fact of the great wealth he had accumulated during his five years up in the gold country of Alaska. He felt in his wave of gratitude that he could do no less.
“You see,” he finished up, “I’m handing you all this because I don’t fancy leaving you with a shadow of doubt. I’m a mighty rich man. So rich I don’t fancy you can guess. But I’m not the sort that figures to offer you a thing for what you reckon to do for me. But I want to say this, and I mean it all; there just isn’t a thing I wouldn’t raise hell to do for you or yours any old time, and for just as long as I live. You’ve handed me life and hope. Hope! You don’t know what it means till you’ve lost it. Hope! Think of life without it. No, you couldn’t. No one could. Death a thousand times sooner—without hope. Gee, I’m tired!”
Suddenly he thrust his elbows on his knees and dropped his chin into the palms of his bandaged hands.
The farmer bestirred himself. He knocked out his pipe, and, moving over to a small pile of wood, replenished the stove. Then he stood up, and, for the first time, the convict beheld a twinkle in the keen black eyes.
“I wanted that story, Pryse,” he said, addressing the other by name for the first time. “And you’ve told it good. I’m not left guessing. Well, boy, I’m going right up to the house now. I’ll be back along with blankets in awhile. There’s wood right here that’ll keep the frost out of your bones. You’re welcome to it all. Then you can sleep good. I’ll have my gal, Molly, pack you up a big bunch of food by morning. I’ll hand you dollars to pay your way with, in case that wealth of yours has been left behind. And you can have a broncho that’ll worry the trail a month without let-up, and live on the dead grass it can scrape from under the snow. If you can make your getaway with that outfit you’re welcome to it. If you fancy it, there’s a shot-gun and some shells that’ll maybe help you to pick up some feed. That’s about all I can see to do. And you’ll have to make that getaway after you’ve eaten good in the morning. You won’t see a soul but me till you’ve quit here. I’ll hand you the best trail to make. That’s all. Now I’ll get along to my supper.”
He moved towards the door, but paused at the sound of the voice of the weary creature beside the stove.