Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/181

Rh at you. There's a hollow, hungry place in me that's filling up again.”

“It was Pete Glass,” said Gregg brokenly. “He—he trusted me clean through when the rest was lookin' at me like I was a snake. Pete got word to the governor, and so”

There followed a long interval of talk that meant nothing, and then, as the afternoon waned towards evening, and the evening toward dark, he told her the whole story of the long adventure. He left out nothing, not a detail that might tell against him. When he came to the moment when Glass persuaded him to go back and betray Barry he winced, but set his jaw and plunged ahead. She, too, paled when she heard that, and for a moment she had to cover her eyes, but she was older by half a life-time than she had been when he was last with her, and now she read below the surface. Besides, Vic had offered to undo what he had done, had offered to stay and fight for Barry, and surely that evened the score!

There was a light rap on the door, and then Mrs. Sommers came in with a tray.

“Maybe you young folks forgot about supper,” she said. “I just thought I'd bring in a bite for you.”

She placed it on the table, and then lingered, delighted, while her eyes went over them together and one by one. Perhaps Betty Neal was a fool for throwing herself away on a gun-fighter, but at least Mrs. Sommers was furnished with a story which half Alder