“Do you think he will?—do you... do you?”
“I was never surer of anything in my life.”
Mollie relinquished his hand, and throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him. An instant later and she had buried her face on his shoulder and was sobbing aloud.
Mr. Brown's unhandsome face flushed scarlet. Never in all his varied experience had he known anything like this. Then his face grew white, and he shook as he had never shaken in the presence of danger, violence, or the risk of sudden death.
Johnny Severance had quitted the Red Bird and turned his face in the direction of Alvarado. Two years of perfect happiness had vanished in the cataclysm that had overwhelmed him and Mollie.
A sudden mist swam before his eyes. Well, she hadn't treated him right, but he hoped she would find peace,—he was man enough to wish no less. He must shape his own future out of the wreck she had made; though this didn't matter greatly, since he was sure life held nothing for him,—indeed, he rather gloated in the thought of an existence, bleak, purposeless and incomparably lonely,—and again the mist seemed to burn his very eyeballs, while it sent the gray valley and the line of purple peaks deep into the distance.
He kept the trail for Alvarado all that day and at nightfall went into camp. Necessity now drove him to the lunch he had brought away from the Red Bird. He choked over each mouthful, for Mollie's small deft hands had been busy here. He reflected bitterly that never again was this to be.
“It'll be up to some chuck-house cook to fill my dinner pail!” he murmured sadly. With the final mouthful he felt that he had destroyed the last link that bound him to the past.
Morning found him sorely tempted to pocket his pride and go back,—back to Mollie, his pumps at the Red Bird and the Mountain House; but he sternly repressed this ignoble weakness. No, sir! She had cast him off. Yet he sat a long time with his head bowed in his hands and watched the light flood the valley. Then again he took the trail. His steps lagged. Not that he was tired, but the cataclysm was somehow seeming less complete than it had seemed the day before.
He went forward, steadily resolute, with his chin sunk on his breast and his glance lowered. Suddenly he became aware that some one was coming along the trail toward him and looked to find himself face to face with Mr. Bunny. There was a strained moment, then Bunny, eying him askance, put out his hand.