go--yes, three--perhaps."

"And where have you been?"

"Knocking about--hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are
building--"

"Road? What road?"

"The new railroad across the continent."

"Where, young man, where?"

"From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the
very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got
news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come
there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found
they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my
pack and struck out over the plains." He paused and wiped the cold
drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage.
"One day,--I found these people, nigh starving for both water and
food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for.
They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs,
and served them as best I could."

"And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say,
give you work? I've lived here these twenty years and found work for
no man but myself. I've found plenty of that--just to keep alive, part
of the time. It's bad here in the winter--if the stores give out. Tell
me what you know of these women."

"Where is the man?"

"Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where
I found him, and pushed on--got there just in time. He wasn't three
hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I
could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so
I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the
daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don't know
what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don't know." As the big
man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening
intently.

"Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers--just
letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I
judged others were hid--sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her--the
young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made
the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other
horse?"

"When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins' Camp and back,
but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and
of food."

"We'll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought
those animals and paid gold