In the shining light
around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described
it--the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate,
the loneliness and impotency.
At two the next morning Jim tapped on Truedale's window with his gun.
"Comin' fur a walk?"
"You bet!" Con was awake at once and alert. Ten minutes later, closing
the doors and windows of his cabin after him, he joined White on the
leaf-strewn path to the woods. He went five miles and then bade his host
good-bye.
"Don't overwork!" grinned Jim sociably. "I'll write to old Doc McPherson
when I git back."
"And when will that be, Jim?"
"I ain't goin' ter predict." White set his lips. "When I stay, I stay,
but once I take ter the woods there ain't no sayin'. I'll fetch fodder
when I cum, and mail, too--but I ain't goin' ter hobble myself when I
take ter the sticks."
Tramping back alone over the wet autumn leaves, Truedale had his first
sense of loneliness since he came. White, he suddenly realized, had
meant to him everything that he needed, but with White unhobbled in the
deep woods, how was he to fill the time? He determined to force himself
to study. He had wedged one solid volume in his trunk, unknown to his
friends. He would brush up his capacity for work--it could not hurt him
now. He was as strong as he had ever been in his life and the prospect
ahead promised greater gains.
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