“A man in trouble, Stewart. But I have come to help you, to show my faith in you.”
“If I believed that I might try,” he said.
“Listen,” she began, softly, hurriedly. “My word is not lightly given. Let it prove my faith in you. Look at me now and say you will come.”
He heaved up his big frame as if trying to cast off a giant’s burden, and then slowly he turned toward her. His face was a blotched and terrible thing. The physical brutalizing marks were there, and at that instant all that appeared human to Madeline was the dawning in dead, furnace-like eyes of a beautiful light.
“I’ll come,” he whispered, huskily. “Give me a few days to straighten up, then I’ll come.”
IX. The New Foreman
Toward the end of the week Stillwell informed Madeline that Stewart had arrived at the ranch and had taken up quarters with Nels.
“Gene’s sick. He looks bad,” said the old cattleman. “He’s so weak an’ shaky he can’t lift a cup. Nels says that Gene has hed some bad spells. A little liquor would straighten him up now. But Nels can’t force him to drink a drop, an’ has hed to sneak some liquor in his coffee. Wal, I think we’ll pull Gene through. He’s forgotten a lot. I was goin’ to tell him what he did to me up at Rodeo. But I know if he’d believe it he’d be sicker than he is. Gene’s losin’ his mind, or he’s got somethin’ powerful strange on it.”
From that time Stillwell, who evidently found Madeline his most sympathetic listener, unburdened himself daily of his hopes and fears and conjectures.