Then, putting his hand out wonderingly, he muttered:
"Gawd!" and drew Truedale in. Breakfast was spread on the table; the
dogs lay before the blazing fire.
"Eat!" commanded Jim, "and keep yer jaws shet except to put in food."
Conning attempted the feat but made a pitiful showing.
"Come to stay on?"
White's curiosity was betraying him and the sympathy in his eyes filled
Truedale with a mad desire to take this "God's man" into his confidence.
"No, Jim. I've come to pack and go back to--to my job!"
"Gosh! it can't be much of a job if you can tackle it--lookin' like what
you do!"
"I've been tramping for--for days, old man! Rather overdone the thing.
I'm not so bad as I look."
"Glad to hear it!" laconically.
"I'll put up with you to-night, Jim, if you'll take me in." Truedale
made an effort to smile.
"Provin' there ain't any hard feeling?"
"There never was, White. I--understood."
"Shake!"
They got through the day somehow. The crust was forming over Truedale's
suffering; he no longer had any desire to let even White break through
it. Once, during the afternoon, the sheriff spoke of Nella-Rose and
without flinching Truedale listened.
"That gal will have Burke eatin' out o' her hand in no time. Lawson is
all right at the kernel, all he needed was some one ter steady him. Once
I made sure he'd married the gal, I felt right easy in my mind.
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