Colorado Jim Part 31

"You--you didn't kill him?"

"Nope. I went there for that, but the Injuns got him first."

Tears swam in her eyes. She moved her hands nervelessly and put the painful, crucial question.

"Did he know--why you came?"

He inclined his head, much affected by her att.i.tude of abject shame. She gave a smothered cry and sank her head into her hands.

"Don't, don't!" he implored. "He understood all right, and he's dead and gone. Forget it!"

He took the mug of hot cocoa, anxious to drop a subject which caused him as much pain as it did her. Through the frosted windows he could see the sunlit, beautiful landscape, shining with incomparable radiance. Soon the spring would come, and with it the soul-filling song of birds, breaking the long silence of the winter.

"It must be round about March," he said. "I sure have lost count of time."

"It's March the third or fourth," she replied.

He glanced round the room and was surprised to notice its tidy appearance.

All the domestic utensils were clean and neatly arranged on shelves, and the window boasted a pair of curtains. He began to realize how near death he must have been--so near, indeed, but for her he would have crossed the abyss before this.

"Where did you find me?" he asked.

"Away back on the fringe of the wood. The dogs came home with the sled and I followed the tracks till I found you. I--I thought you were dead."

"And you carried me here?"

"I unpacked the sled and went back with it. I managed to get you on to it--the dogs did the rest."

He gave a low sigh.

"I'll soon be up and about again."

"I don't think you will. You are terribly weak--and look so ill."

He laughed weakly.

"I ain't much of an invalid. You'll see."

She did see. His recovery was amazingly rapid. He seemed to change hourly, making new flesh at an astonishing pace. His iron const.i.tution performed miracles of transformation. In three days, despite argument, he was out of bed. On the tenth day he shouldered the shovel and the washing pan and went out to a small creek to hunt the elusive gold. But failure still dogged him. He flung down the shovel and devoted hours to thinking over the position. When the pale sun began to sink behind the multicolored peaks he came to a decision and tramped back to the shack. A meal was awaiting him, spread on a clean white cloth. He noticed that the knives had been cleaned, and that a bowl of water was heated ready for a wash, which he badly needed. It was a pleasant but astonishing change. For the first time it brought a real sense of "home." He half regretted the decision made but an hour before, but he meant to go through with it, hurt how it might.

"Angela," he said. "We're packing up to-morrow."

She looked at him queerly.

"Where to?"

"Dawson."

"And then----"

"The break-up is coming, and there'll be boats out to San Francisco."

"I see. We are going back?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Because you have failed?"

He tightened his lips and his eyes flashed.

"Nope. I ain't failed. I'll never let this thing beat me. I'll git gold if I stay till I'm fifty----"

"But you said we were----"

"I kind o' got it mixed. I meant that you should go home. See here, I've got enough dollars to get you back to England--and it's about time."

She put down her knife and fork, and he saw a queer light gathering in her eyes. He had expected a look of joy and triumph, but it wasn't that.

"Listen," she said. "A year and a half ago you made a business deal. You bought me, with my own consent, for fifty thousand pounds----"

"Cut that out," he muttered. "I ain't sticking to that--now."

"But I am."

"Eh!"

"That night when I escaped from you, by a mean trick, I was glad enough--in a way. But out there, in that cruel wilderness, I came to see that a business transaction, properly conducted, is a sacred affair. When one buys a thing, it belongs to one until someone else can pay the price.

That's the position, isn't it?"

"Nope. I can give away my property if I wish."

"Not in this case."

"h.e.l.l I can!"

"h.e.l.l you can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because--I can't accept anything from you. Food is a different matter.

You fixed the conditions yourself--'fifty-fifty' you called it. And that's how it stands."

He jerked his chair back and strode up and down the shack. This unexpected swing of the pendulum upset all his arrangements. He feared she did not understand the true state of affairs.

"Things is different--I've failed," he growled.

"_We've failed_--you mean."

"And I'm broke."