for them. They wanted to know where I got
the gold. I told them where they'd never get it. They asked me ten
prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they
could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in
the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a
long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me,
and all that took time."

The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. "And what next?" asked
Harry King.

"Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I
packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of
their things up here, and there may be some of your own among
them--they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a
good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered
it--and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of
their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something.
It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the
help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie
there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that's
not likely.

"I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and
as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother
slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did
him, but it comforted her heart. It's a good religion for a woman,
where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a
priest's word for it all. And now they're here, and you're here, and
my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me--I
can't."

Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. "Nor can I--help--but to
take myself off."

"Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have
foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be
possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn't so bad. As long as they
stay you'll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to
winter,--and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away
where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the
world's hard on women. I've seen much."

Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and
waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other's
mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he
followed up the advantage toward co