And the same flash of insight showed me that I would be followed
wherever I went; and the thing that convinced my intuitions--not my
reason--of this was the recollection of the old man stamping the remains
of the poor little bird into the mud by the willows. I saw again the
insane rage of his face; and I felt cold fingers touching my spine.

On this I went abruptly and unexpectedly to sleep, after the fashion of
youth, and did not stir until Sing, the cook, routed us out before dawn.
We were not to ride the range that day because of Jim Starr, but Sing
was a person of fixed habits. I plunged my head into the face of the
dawn with a new and light-hearted confidence. It was one of those clear,
nile-green sunrises whose lucent depths go back a million miles or so;
and my spirit followed on wings. Gone were at once my fine-spun theories
and my forebodings of the night. Life was clean and clear and simple.
Jim Starr had probably some personal enemy. Old Man Hooper was
undoubtedly a mean old lunatic, and dangerous; very likely he would
attempt to do me harm, as he said, if I bothered him again, but as for
following me to the ends of the earth----

The girl was a different matter. She required thought. So, as I was
hungry and the day sparkling, I postponed her and went in to breakfast.




CHAPTER VII


By the time the coroner's inquest and the funeral in town were over it