“Well, it will not be long now,” they said to him. And he had never heard words so desolate.
“No,” he made out to say; “soon now.” Their cheerfulness seemed unearthly to him, and his heart almost broke beneath it.
“We’ll have one to your success,” they suggested.
So with them he repaired to another place; and the sight of a man leaning against the bar made him start so that they noticed him. Then he saw that the man was a stranger whom he had never laid eyes on till now.
“It looked like Shorty,” he said, and could have bitten his tongue off.
“Shorty is quiet up in the Tetons,” said a friend. “You don’t want to be thinking about him. Here’s how!”
Then they clapped him on the back and he left them. He thought of his enemy and his hate, beating his rage like a failing horse, and treading the courage of his drink. Across a space he saw Wiggin, walking with McLean and Scipio. They were watching the town to see that his friends made no foul play.
“We’re giving you a clear field,” said Wiggin.
“This race will not be pulled,” said McLean.
“Be with you at the finish,” said Scipio.
And they passed on. They did not seem like real people to him.
Trampas looked at the walls and windows of the houses. Were they real? Was he here, walking in this street? Something had changed. He looked everywhere, and feeling it everywhere, wondered what this could be. Then he knew: it was the sun that had gone entirely behind the mountains, and he drew out his pistol.
The Virginian, for precaution, did not walk out of the front door of the hotel. He went through back ways, and paused once. Against his breast he felt the wedding ring where he had it suspended by a chain from his neck. His hand went up to it, and he drew it out and looked at it. He took it off the chain, and his arm went back to hurl it from him as far as he could. But he stopped and kissed it with one sob, and thrust it in his pocket. Then he walked out into the open, watching. He saw men here and there, and they let him pass as before, without speaking. He saw his three friends, and they said no word to him. But they turned and followed in his rear at a little distance, because it was known that Shorty had been found shot from behind. The Virginian gained a position soon where no one could come at him except from in front; and the sight of the mountains was almost more than he could endure, because it was there that he had been going tomorrow.
“It is quite a while after sunset,” he heard himself say.
A wind seemed to blow his sleeve off his arm, and he replied to it, and saw Trampas pitch forward. He saw Trampas raise his arm from the ground and fall again, and lie there this time, still. A little smoke was rising from the pistol on the ground, and he looked at his own, and saw the smoke flowing upward out of it.
“I expect that’s all,” he said aloud.
But as he came nearer Trampas, he covered him with his weapon. He stopped a moment, seeing the hand on the ground move. Two fingers twitched, and then ceased; for it was all. The Virginian stood looking down at Trampas.
“Both of mine hit,” he said, once more aloud. “His must have gone mighty close to my arm. I told her it would not be me.”
He had scarcely noticed that he was being surrounded and congratulated. His hand was being shaken, and he saw it was Scipio in tears. Scipio’s joy made his heart like lead within him. He was near telling his friend everything, but he did not.
“If anybody wants me about this,” he said, “I will be at the hotel.”
“Who’ll want you?” said Scipio. “Three of us saw his gun out.” And he vented his admiration. “You were that cool! That quick!”
“I’ll see you boys again,” said the Virginian, heavily; and he walked away.
Scipio looked after him, astonished. “Yu’ might suppose he was in poor luck,” he said to McLean.
The Virginian walked to the hotel, and stood on the threshold of his sweetheart’s room. She had heard his step, and was upon her feet. Her lips were parted, and her eyes fixed on him, nor did she move, or speak.
“Yu’ have to know it,” said he. “I have killed Trampas.”
“Oh, thank God!” she said; and he found her in his arms. Long they embraced without speaking, and what they whispered then with their kisses, matters not.
Thus did her New England conscience battle to the end, and, in the end, capitulate to love. And the next day, with the bishop’s blessing, and Mrs. Taylor’s broadest smile, and the ring on her finger, the Virginian departed with his bride into the mountains.
XXXVI
At Dunbarton
For their first bridal camp he chose an island. Long weeks beforehand he had thought of this place, and set his heart upon it. Once established in his mind, the thought became a picture that he saw waking and sleeping. He had stopped at the island many times alone, and in all seasons; but at this special moment of the year he liked it best. Often he had added several needless miles to his journey that he might finish the day at this point, might catch the trout for his supper beside a certain rock upon its edge, and fall asleep hearing the stream on either side of him.
Always for him the first signs that he had gained the true world of the mountains began at the island. The first pine trees stood upon it; the
