Regret, terrible because it was unavailing, lay hold of him. Virginia was there. Was it possible that by any gift of divination she could know of their danger? She had told him more than once that no evil would ever befall him and she be wholly unconscious of it, no matter what the distance that separated them. He hoped this was so. He prayed that if the coming day closed on a tragedy, she might learn at once of the destruction of the train; but who would there be left to tell her of the end? None of his companions would survive, he was sure of this, if Basil and Raymond were responsible for the attack; indeed, it would be the merest chance if she ever knew. He would not go back to her—that would be all; this alone she would know, that he had not returned; the rest would be conjecture.
He recalled how they had passed in indifference the graves by the trail side; they had not once been moved to curiosity, even the most idle; for what were these little tragedies in the supreme selfishness of that rush across the plains, and who would stop or turn aside to unravel the small mystery of their last stand? What man would care who they had been, or whence they came, when the certain hand of death had done its work? Their very bones might bleach there for a hundred years before another white man climbed that hill.
He told himself his fears were cowardly; he sought to reason himself out of his forebodings; a thousand things might happen when day came to make the situation seem less hopeless. It was only the night, the unspeakable loneliness and silence, or the memory of that ghastly presence in the wagon, with its white upturned face, that filled him with abject fear. He closed his eyes, but the white face was there before him—always the white face—with the small dark stain on the temple among the brown curls; the visible cause so inadequate measured by the consequences. Dunlevy might have lived for sixty years without that mark; and sixty years were countless weeks, endless days, hours and minutes innumerable; and yet all in a second the possibilities of life had been withdrawn, and there remained only the senseless clay and the uncertainty that hope and love had crystallized into its high belief of immortality.
To get away from this he tried to think only of Virginia. He saw her again on the white porch of their home; he could only remember her so; the days they had spent together seemed blotted out and to have dwindled to the agony of that last look; yet even this gave him hope and courage. He thought now of the time when the toil and effort of the trail should be ended, when he should have made or lost in this foolish enterprise, to his sobered judgment it mattered not which.
But what if this was his last night; his lips parched, and his breathing became laboured; already in anticipation he tasted death. What if it would be his lot to share poor Dunlevy's sleep! He thought with bitter regret how he had filled Virginia's heart; there were no children to take his place; all her strong maternal love had been given to him.
His mind drifted back to commonplaces. He had disposed of his business in an orderly fashion before he left home. Benson knew just how matters stood, and he believed Benson to be scrupulously honest. There would be ample left for her, if the worst came to the worst, out of the wreck he and Bushrod had made of the family fortunes; ample for the simple life she would choose to live. Then he remembered the packet of papers in his pocket; among them was the memorandum which he and his brother had drawn up at Benson's request and which included an accurate inventory of their interests. He had intended sending Virginia a copy, but had neglected to do so.
The sound of a light footfall roused him from his revery; he turned quickly. In the grey light he saw the figure of the child; his hold on his gun relaxed; the boy stole to his side.
“Why aren't you asleep, Benny?” he asked in a whisper so as not to disturb the others.
“I have been sleeping,” the boy answered, “but I waked up and got lonely, and I couldn't wake my pop.”
“Couldn't wake your father? That's odd; he usually rouses at the slightest sound.”