The poignancy of that meeting for Adam reached a climax in the absolute failure of Dismukes to recognize him. Last and certain proof of change! The desert years had transformed Adam Larey, the youth, into the man Wansfell. For the first moment in all that time did Adam feel an absolute sense of safety. He would never be recognized, never be apprehended for his crime. He seemed born again.
“Dismukes, how near are you to getting all your five hundred thousand?” queried Adam, with a smile. There seemed to be a sad pleasure in thus baffling the old prospector.
“By Gad! how’d you know about that?” exclaimed Dismukes.
“You told me.”
“Say, Wansfell! Am I drunk or are you a mind reader?” demanded the prospector, bewildered. “Comin’ along here I was thinkin’ about that five hundred thousand. But I never told anyone—except a boy once—an’ he’s dead.”
“How about your white-faced burro Jinny—the one that used to steal things out of your pack?” asked Adam, slowly.
“Jinny! Jinny!” ejaculated Dismukes, with a start. His great ox eyes dilated and something of shock ran through his huge frame. “That burro I never forgot. I gave her away to a boy who starved on the desert. She came back to me. Tracked me to Yuma.... An’ you—you—how’d you know Jinny?... Man, who are you?”
“Dismukes, I was the boy you saved—down under the Chocolates—ninety miles from Yuma. Remember ... it was Jinny saw me wandering in a circle, mad with thirst. You saved me—gave me Jinny and a pack—told me how to learn the desert—sent me to the Indians.... Dismukes, I was that boy. I am now—Wansfell.”
The prospector seemed to expand with the increased strain of his gaze into Adam’s eyes, until the instant of recognition.
“By God! I know you now!” he boomed, and locked his horny hands on Adam in a gladness that was beyond the moment and had to do, perhaps, with a far-past faith in things. “I thought you died on the desert. Jinny’s comin’ back seemed proof of that.... But you lived! You—that boy, tall as a mescal plant—with eyes of agony.... I never forgot.... An’ now you’re Wansfell!”