“Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the people.  All I knew was brands and my bosses.  Did good enough cow work, I reckon.  For a fact, it was mebbe half a year before I begun to look around.  That country is worse than over Panamit way.  There’s no trees; there’s no water; there’s no green grass; there’s no folks; there’s no nothin’!  The mountains look like they’re made of paper.  After about a half year, as I said, I took note of all this, but I didn’t care.  What the hell difference did it make to me what the country was like?  I hadn’t no theories to that.  I’d left all that back here.”

He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy unless it was necessary.  Bob nodded.

“Then I begun to dream.  Things come to me.  I’d see places plain—­like the falls at Cascadell—­and smell things.  For a fact, I smelt azaleas plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever see.  I thought I’d never want to see this country again; the farther I got away, the more things I’d forget.  You understand.”

Again Bob nodded.

“It wasn’t that way.  The farther off I got, the more I remembered.  So one day I cashed in and come back.”

He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling over the fire.

“It’s good to get back!” he resumed at last.  “It smells good; it tastes good.  For a while that did me well enough....  I used to sneak down nights and look at my old place....  In summer I go back to Jim and the cattle, but it’s dangerous these days.  The towerists is getting thicker, and you can’t trust everybody, even among the mountain folks.”

“How many know you are back here?” asked Bob.

“Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and Martin and a few others.  They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes bringing me grub and papers.  But it’s plumb lonesome.  I can’t go on livin’ this way forever, and I can’t leave this yere place.  Since I have been living here it seems like—­well, I ain’t no call as I can see it to desert my wife dead or alive!” he declared stoutly.

“You needn’t explain,” said Bob.

George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.

“Well, you know about such things.  What am I to do?”

“There are only two courses that I can see,” answered Bob, after reflection, “outside the one you’re following now.  You can give yourself up to the authorities and plead guilty.  There’s a chance that mitigating circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and there’s always a possibility of a pardon.  When all the details are made known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy.”

“What’s the other?” demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest attention.

“The other is simply to go back home.”

“They’d arrest me.”

“Let them,” said Bob.  “Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the trial.  Their evidence is circumstantial; you don’t have to incriminate yourself; I doubt if a jury would agree on convicting you.  Have you ever talked with anybody about—­about that morning?”