Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/156

 hear once more that struggle for breath behind him, and he would look fearfully over his shoulder.

Now and then he had a letter from Clare, fervid, immature notes to which, sitting at his table in the long evenings, he wrote occasional perfunctory replies.

Dear Clare:

Things are going along here all right. I keep busy and I guess that's the answer to a lot of things. Don't you worry about the Indian matter. I'm not pulling leather any yet. You might go around and see the Mallorys sometimes. I guess they are pretty lonesome.

Yours,

Sometimes he talked to himself aloud, as lonely men often do. Perhaps there were even times when he was not quite balanced; there was that obsession about Jake's bunk, for instance. And because he refused to admit Kay to his waking thoughts, she began to trouble him in his sleep. He wakened one night to see her standing by the fire in her riding clothes. He had to sit up in the bunk to convince himself she was not there.

Then, shortly after Christmas Weasel Tail finally died, and a Deputy Sheriff took advantage of a chinook and a spell of warm weather to ride out and tell him. The trial was set for February.

He was scarcely interested. He did not much care, these days, how the affair turned out. He was gaunt and unshaven most of the time. His small supply of clothing had practically given out, and he had refused money except for necessary food from Mrs. Mallory. His hands were broken and blistered under his ragged gloves, his eyelids swollen, his lips cracked.

"I'll be there. You tell 'em," he said to the Deputy.

And before the Deputy left he gave him the bottle from the rafter.

"You'd better keep it, Tom. You look as if you needed it."