ught appetite. He had made an immense gain in health.

"How long have I been here, Jim?" he asked in a slow, calm voice.

"Come Thursday, three weeks!" When Jim was most laconic he was often
inwardly bursting with desire for conversation. After a silence Conning
spoke again:

"Say, Jim, are there any other people in this mountain range, except you
and me?"

"Ugh! just bristlin' with folks! Getting too darned thick. That's why
I've got ter get into the deep woods. I just naturally hate folks except
in small doses. Why"--here Jim put the gun down upon the table--"five
mile back, up on Lone Dome, is the Greyson's, and it ain't nine miles to
Jed Martin's place. Miss Lois Ann's is a matter o' sixteen miles; what
do you call population if them figures don't prove it?"

Something had evidently disturbed White's ideas of isolation and
independence--it would all come out later. Truedale knew his man fairly
well by that time; at least he thought he did. Again Jim took up his gun
and Con thought lazily that he must get over to his shack. He occupied a
small cabin--Dr. McPherson's property for sleeping purposes.

"Do yo' know," Jim broke in suddenly; "yo' mind me of a burr runnin'
wild in a flock of sheep--gatherin' as yo' go. Yo' sho are a miracle!
Now old Doc McPherson was like a shadder when he headed this way--but he
took longer gatherin', owin' to age an' natural defects o' build. Your
frame was picked right close, but a kind o' flabby layer of gristle and
fat hung ter him an' wasn't a good foundation to build on."

Conning gave a delighted laugh. Once Jim White began to talk of his own
volition his discourse flowed on until hunger or weariness overtook him.
His silences had the same quality--it was the way Jim began that
mattered.

"When I first took ter handlin' yo' for ole Doc McPherson, I kinder
hated ter take my eyes off yo' fearin' yo' might slip out, but Gawd! yo'
can grapple fo' yo' self now and--I plain hanker fur the sticks."

"The sticks?" This was a new expression.

"Woods!" Jim vouchsafed (he despised the stupidity that required
interpretation of perfectly plain English), "deep woods! What with Burke
Lawson suspected of bein' nigh, an' my duty as sheriff consarnin' him
hittin' me in the face, I've studied it out that it will be a mighty
reasonable trick fur this here officer of the law to be somewhere else
till Burke settles with his friends an' foes, or takes himself off,
'fore he's strung up or shot u