Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/429

Rh "Listen," I said. "Suppose while you were on guard he had whispered, 'Get me off'—would you have done it?"

"No, sir!" said the Virginian, hotly.

"Then what do you want?" I asked. "What did you want?"

He could not answer me—but I had not answered him, I saw; so I pushed it farther. "Did you want indorsement from the man you were hanging? That's asking a little too much."

But he had now another confusion. "Steve stood by Shorty," he said musingly. "It was Shorty's mistake cost him his life, but all the same he didn't want us to catch—"

"You are mixing things," I interrupted. "I never heard you mix things before. And it was not Shorty's mistake."

He showed momentary interest. "Whose then?"

"The mistake of whoever took a fool into their enterprise."

"That's correct. Well, Trampas took Shorty in, and Steve would not tell on him either."

I still tried it, saying, "They were all in the same boat." But logic was useless; he had lost his bearings in a fog of sentiment. He knew, knew passionately, that he had done right; but the silence of his old friend to him through those last hours left a sting that no reasoning could assuage. "He told good-by to the rest of the boys; but not to me." And nothing that I could point out in common sense turned him from the thread of his own argument. He worked round the circle again to self-justification. "Was it him