Seeing that she had for the moment escaped him, Truedale turned to White and confronted him with clear, angry eyes.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” he demanded fiercely.

The shock had been tremendous for Jim.  Three weeks previously he had left his charge safe and alone; he had come back and found—­But shock always stiffened Jim White; that was one reason for his success in life.  He was never so inflexible and deadly self-possessed as he was when he could not see the next step ahead.

“Gawd, but I’m tired!” he said, when he had stared at Truedale as long as he cared to, “I’m going over to my place to turn in.  Seems like I’ll sleep for a month once I get started.”

“You don’t go, White, until you explain what you meant by—­”

But Truedale mistook his man.  Jim, having drawn his own conclusion, laughed and strode toward the door.

“I go when I’m damned pleased ter go!” he flung out derisively, “and I come the same way, young feller.  There’s mail for yo’ in the sack and—­a telegram.”  White paused by the door a moment while Truedale picked the yellow envelope from the bag and tore it open.

     “Your uncle died suddenly on the 16th.  Come at once.  Vitally
     important.  McPHERSON.”

For a moment both men forgot the thing that had driven them wide apart.

“Bad news?” asked the sheriff.

Something was happening to Truedale—­he felt as if the effect of some narcotic were losing its power; the fevered unreality was giving place to sensation but the brain was recording it dully.

“What date is this?” he asked, dazed.

“Twenty-fifth,” Jim replied as he moved out of the door.

“When can I get a train from the station?”

“There’s one as leaves anywhere ’twixt nine and ten ter-night.”

“That gives me time to pack.  See here, White, while it isn’t any of your business, I want to explain a thing or two—­before I go.  I’ll be back as soon as I can—­in a week or ten days at furthest.  When I return I intend to stay on, probably for the rest of my life.”

White still held Truedale by the cold, steely gleam of his eyes which was driving lucidity home to the dulled brain.  By a power as unyielding as death Jim was destroying the screen Truedale had managed to raise against the homely codes of life and was leaving his guest naked and exposed.

The shock of the telegram—­the pause it evolved—­had given Truedale time to catch the meaning of White’s attitude; now that he realized it, he knew he must lay certain facts open—­he could not wait until his return.

Presently Jim spoke from outside the door.

“I ain’t settin’ up for no critic.  I ain’t by nater a weigher or trimmer and I don’t care a durn for what ain’t my business.  When I see my business I settle it in my own way!”—­there was almost a warning in this.  “I’m dead tired, root and branch.  I’m goin’ ter take a bite an’ turn in.  I may sleep a couple o’ days; put off yo’ ‘splainifyin’ ’til yo’ come back ter end yo’ days.  Take the mare an’ leave her by the trail; she’ll come home.  Tell old Doc McPherson I was askin’ arter him.”