for letting him alone.
The other reasons are that he's suspected of being a bad actor.

But the distance is the chief thing that fences people away.
The straight cut is bad going. The better way around is a slow
journey. It leads west out of Lukin and down into the valley of
the Girard River; then along the Girard to its headwaters. Then
through the mountains again to the only entrance to the valley.
I'm telling you all this so that you'll know what you may have
ahead of you. If I'm mum for three months come straight for
Lukin; go to a telegraph operator named Ruth Manning, and tell
her that you've come to get track of me. She'll give you the
names of the best dozen men in Lukin, and you start for the
valley with the posse.

Around Lukin they have a sort of foggy fear of the valley, bad
medicine, they call it.

I have a hard game ahead of me and I'm going to stack the
cards. I've got to get into the Garden by a trick and get out
again the same way. I start this afternoon.

I've got a horse and a pack mule, and I'm going to try my hand
at camping out. If I come back it will be on something that
will carry both the pack and me, I think, and it won't take
long to make the trip. Our days of being rich for ten days and
poor for thirty will be over.

Hold yourself ready; sharp at the end of ninety days, come West
if I'm still silent.

As ever,

BEN.

Before the mail took that letter eastward, Ben Connor received his final
advice from Jack Townsend. It was under the hotel man's supervision that
he selected his outfit of soft felt hat, flannel shirts, heavy socks,
and Napatan boots; Townsend, too, went with him to pick out the pack
mule and all the elements of the pack, from salt to canned tomatoes.

As for the horse, Townsend merely stood by to admire while Ben Connor
went through a dozen possibilities and picked a solidly built chestnut
with legs enough for speed in a pinch, and a flexible fetlock--joints
that promised an easy gait.

"You won't have no trouble," said Townsend, as Connor sat the saddle,
working the stirrups back and forth and frowning at the creaking new
leather. "Wherever you go you'll find gents ready to give you a hand on
your way."

"Why's that? Don't I look like an old hand at this game?"

"Not with that complexion; it talks city a mile off. If you'd tell me
wh