RIVER COUNTRY AND FREEDOM

In the chair car, where he plumped himself into a seat just as the
train began to creep forward, Jack pulled his hat down over his
eyebrows and wondered if any one had recognized him while he was
getting on the train. He could not tell, because he had not dared to
seem anxious about it, and so had not looked around him. At any rate
he had not been stopped, though the police could wire ahead and have
him dragged off the train at any station they pleased. Panic once more
caught him and he did not dare look up when the conductor came for his
ticket, but held his breath until the gloomy, haggard-faced man had
tagged him and passed on. Until the train had passed Newhall and was
rattling across the flat country to the coast, he shivered when any
one passed down the aisle.

Beyond San Francisco lay the fog bank of the unknown. With his fishing
outfit he could pass unquestioned to any part of that mysterious,
vague region known as Northern California. The Russian River country,
Tahoe, Shasta Springs, Feather River--the names revolved teasingly
through Jack's mind. He did not know anything about them, beyond the
fact that they were places where fellows went for sport, and that he
hoped people would think he went for sport also. His wading boots and
his rod and creel would, he hoped, account for any haste he might
betray in losing himself somewhere.

Lose himself he must. If he did not, if his mother got the chance to
put him through the tearful third-degree system that women employ with
such deadly certainty of success, Jack knew that he would tell all
that he knew--perhaps more. The very least he could hope to reveal was
the damning fact that he had not been to Mount Wilson that day. After
that the rest would not need to be told. They could patch up the
evidence easily enough.

He tried to forget that man slipping down in the embrace of his
friend. It was too horrible to be true. It must have been a trick just
to scare the boys. The world was full of joshers--Jack knew half a
dozen men capable of playing that trick, just to turn the joke. For a
few minutes he was optimistic, almost making himself believe that the
man had not been shot, after all. The fading effect of the wines he
had drunk sent his mood swinging from the depths of panicky anguish
over the horrible affair, to a senseless optimism that refused to see
disaster when it stood by his side.

He tried again to decide where he should