red sunlight, but spots where the storm was wearing thin; and
wandering streams of warmth passed by slowly in the surrounding air.
As I watched the clouds and the earth, my eyes chanced to fall on the
distant clump of cottonwoods. Vapors from the enfeebled storm floated
round them, and they were indeed far away; but I came inside and began
rolling up my blankets.

"You will not change your mind?" said the Virginian by the fire. "It is
thirty-five miles."

I shook my head, feeling a certain shame that he should see how unnerved
I was.

He swallowed a hot cupful, and after it sat thinking; and presently he
passed his hand across his brow, shutting his eyes. Again he poured
out a cup, and emptying this, rose abruptly to his feet as if shaking
himself free from something.

"Let's pack and quit here," he said.

Our horses were in the corral and our belongings in the shelter of what
had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He collected them in
silence while I saddled my own animal, and in silence we packed the two
packhorses, and threw the diamond hitch, and hauled tight the slack,
damp ropes. Soon we had mounted, and as we turned into the trail I gave
a look back at my last night's lodging.

The Virginian noticed me. "Good-by forever!" he interpreted.

"By God, I hope so!"

"Same here," he confessed. And these were our first natural words this
morning.

"This will go well," said I, holding my flask out to him; and both of us
took some, and felt easier for it and the natural words.

For an hour we had been shirking real talk, holding fast to the weather,
or anything, and all the while that silent thing we were keeping
off spoke plainly in the air around us and in every syllable that we
uttered. But now we were going to get away from it; leave it behind in
the stable, and set ourselves free from it by talking it out. Already
relief had begun to stir in my spirits.

"You never did this before," I said.

"No. I never had it to do." He was riding beside me, looking down at his
saddle-horn.

"I do not think I should ever be able," I pursued.

Defiance sounded in his answer. "I would do it again this morning."

"Oh, I don't mean that. It's all right here. There's no other way."

"I would do it all over again the same this morning. Just the same."

"Why, so should I--if I could do it at all." I still thought he was
justifying their justice to me.

He made no answer as he rode along, looking all the while