CHAPTER XXXVII
NEAR THE END OF A LONG CROOKED TRAIL
When West awoke, Morse was whittling on a piece of wood with his sharp hunting-knife. It was a flat section from a spruce, and it had been trimmed with an axe till it resembled a shake in shape.
The outlaw's curiosity overcame his sullenness at last. It made him jumpy, anyhow, to sit there in silence except for the muttering of the sick man.
"Whajamakin'?" he demanded.
Morse said nothing. He smoothed the board to his satisfaction, then began lettering on it with a pencil.
"I said whajadoin'," growled West, after another silence.
The special constable looked at him, and in the young man's eyes there was something that made the murderer shiver.
"I'm making a tombstone."
"What?" West felt a drench of ice at his heart.