"No, indeed! It is just my lucky chance. The party I am with are camped half a mile over yonder. I left them for no very definable reason, and thereby met with an adventure that may have a great influence on my actions, perhaps on my whole future life. When we camped over there by the side of the stream, I thought it was but for the night, now I may linger in this neighborhood for a day or so. The question is, if I need a friend will you stand behind me?"
"What's this adventure, and how do you want me to stand behind you? If what I think is true, you may have more need of it than you think for."
"Well, Martin, I scarce know in what manner I would have you aid me; perhaps after all only by a neutrality. As to the adventure—I met with a woman."
There seemed to be nothing either astonishing or disconcerting in this revelation. After waiting in unbroken silence for any remarks that Martin might feel inclined to make, Endicott proceeded:
"It was rather strange for a man to ride out of camp with no aim or object and to stumble upon a woman; stranger, too, when that woman chanced to be one whom you had known long before, and for whom you had been long searching and in vain. I do not know what may come of it; but I know what I want to. How is it? There is no one of our little party that I care to trust—if I need assistance within the next twenty-four hours will you give it, and where can I find you?"
Martin looked up slowly and deliberately.
"It seems to me you're putting things on their old basis, what one of us plans the other is to help carry through."
"Why not? Neither you nor I have grown what the world calls better since then, and of course the understanding would be now as it always was—nothing for nothing, all for whatever pays."
"No, I don't suppose we have grown much better; but there may have been a few changes. As to the woman you speak of, here is all I have to say. If you have any plans and can carry them out openly and above board, no force, no underhanded means, no fraud, I'll not lay a straw in your way; maybe I can help you."
"If not?"