“Good Lord!” exclaimed Conning; “the young brute!  And the other one—­what did she do?”

“She jest looked at me—­her eyes swimmin’.  Nella-Rose don’t talk much when she’s hurt, but she don’t forget.  I tell yo’, young feller, bein’ a sheriff in this settlement ain’t no joke.  Yo’ know folks too well and see the rights and wrongs more’n is good for plain justice.”

“Well?” Jim rose and stretched himself, “yo’ won’t go on the b’ar hunt ter-morrer?”

“No, Jim, but I’ll walk part of the way with you.  When do you start?”

“‘Bout two o’ the mornin’.”

“Then I’ll turn in.  Good-night, old man!  You’ve given me a great evening.  I feel as if I were suddenly projected into a crowd with human problems smashing into each other for all they’re worth.  You cannot escape, old man; that’s the truth.  You cannot escape.  Life is life no matter where you find it.”

“Now don’t git ter talkin’ perlite to me,” Jim warned.  “Old Doc McPherson’s orders was agin perlite conversation.  Get a scrabble on yer!  I’ll knock yer up ’bout two or thereabouts.”

Outside, Truedale stood still and looked at the beauty of the night.  The moon was full and flooded the open space with a radiance which contrasted sharply with the black shadows and the outlines of the near and distant peaks.

The silence was so intense that the ear, straining for sound, ached from the effort.  And just then a bewitched hen in White’s shed gave a weird cry and Truedale started.  He smiled grimly and thought of the little no-count and the tragedy of the white bantam.  In the shining light around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described it—­the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate, the loneliness and impotency.

At two the next morning Jim tapped on Truedale’s window with his gun.

“Comin’ fur a walk?”

“You bet!” Con was awake at once and alert.  Ten minutes later, closing the doors and windows of his cabin after him, he joined White on the leaf-strewn path to the woods.  He went five miles and then bade his host good-bye.

“Don’t overwork!” grinned Jim sociably.  “I’ll write to old Doc McPherson when I git back.”

“And when will that be, Jim?”

“I ain’t goin’ ter predict.”  White set his lips.  “When I stay, I stay, but once I take ter the woods there ain’t no sayin’.  I’ll fetch fodder when I cum, and mail, too—­but I ain’t goin’ ter hobble myself when I take ter the sticks.”

Tramping back alone over the wet autumn leaves, Truedale had his first sense of loneliness since he came.  White, he suddenly realized, had meant to him everything that he needed, but with White unhobbled in the deep woods, how was he to fill the time?  He determined to force himself to study.  He had wedged one solid volume in his trunk, unknown to his friends.  He would brush up his capacity for work—­it could not hurt him now.  He was as strong as he had ever been in his life and the prospect ahead promised greater gains.