te of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell
difference did it make to me what the country was like? I hadn't no
theories to that. I'd left all that back here."

He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy
unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.

"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places plain--like
the falls at Cascadell--and smell things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas
plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever
see. I thought I'd never want to see this country again; the farther I
got away, the more things I'd forget. You understand."

Again Bob nodded.

"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I remembered. So
one day I cashed in and come back."

He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling
over the fire.

"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells good; it tastes
good. For a while that did me well enough.... I used to sneak down
nights and look at my old place.... In summer I go back to Jim and the
cattle, but it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker,
and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."

"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.

"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and
Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes
bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on
livin' this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since I have
been living here it seems like--well, I ain't no call as I can see it to
desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.

"You needn't explain," said Bob.

George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.

"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?"

"There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob, after
reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You can give yourself
up to the authorities and plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating
circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and
there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made
known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."

"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest
attention.

"The other is simply to go back home."

"They'd arrest me."

"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the
trial. Their evidence is circumstantial;