He followed the trail. Why stop now?
The long-forgotten ranch buildings lay across the stream and behind the
tongue of spruce trees, unless some wandering foothill fire had
destroyed them. He forded the stream without difficulty. That was
where he had carried her out. . . . He felt his way slowly along the
old fence. That was where she had set up bottles for his marksmanship.
. . . He stopped where the straggling gate should be, and walked
carefully into the yard. That was where she had first called him Dave.
. . . Then he found the doorstep, and sat down to wait.

When the sun was well up he rose and walked about. His lips were
parched; he found himself nibbling them with his teeth, so he went to
the stream. He was thirsty, but he drank only a mouthful; the water
was flat and insipid. . . . The old cabin was in better repair than he
would have thought. He sprung the door open. It was musty and strung
with cobwebs; that was the room she had occupied. He did not go in,
but sat down and tried to think.

Later he walked up the canyon. He must have walked swiftly, for the
sun was not yet at the meridian when he found himself at the little
nook in the rock where he and Irene had sat that afternoon when they
had first laid their hearts open to each other. He tried to recall
that long-forgotten conversation, lacerating himself with the pain of
its tenderness. Suddenly one remark stood up in his memory. "The day
is coming," she had said, "when our country will want men who can shoot
and ride." And he had said, "Well, when it does, it can call on me."
And to-day the country did want men who could shoot and ride, and he
had flown into the foothills to nurse a broken heart. . . . Broken
hearts can fight as well as whole ones. Better, perhaps, because they
don't care. He felt his frame straighten as this thought sank home.
He could be of some use yet. At any rate, there was a way out.

Some whim led him through the grove of spruce trees on his way back to
the ranch. Here, in an open space, he looked about, kicking in the dry
grass. At length his toe disturbed a few bleached bones, and he stood
and looked with unseeing eyes far across the shimmering valley.

"Brownie," he said at length. "Brownie." The whole scene came back
upon him; the moonlight, and Irene's distress, and the little bleeding
body. And he had said he didn't know anything about the justice of
God; all he knew was the crittur that cou