Despairs Last Journey | Page 3

hard biscuits, and then sat munching and sipping, with his feet stretched wide apart, and his back against a tree--a picture of unthinking idleness.
A rustle near at hand awoke attention, and he rolled his head lazily on one shoulder. The rustle drew nearer yet, and round the bend of the trail came a man in moleskin trousers, a gray shirt, and a shapeless felt hat, which seemed to have no colour but those lent to it by years of sun and rain.
'Hillo, mate!' said the new man.
'Hillo!' said the camper-out.
'Come here by the last train, I suppose?'
'By the last train.'
'Got a mate with you?'
'No.'
The new-comer stared, and said 'Hm!' doubtfully. He looked from the other man's pale, clean-shaven face to his white hands.
'New to this kind of game, ain't you? he asked, at length.
'For a year or two,' the other answered.
'I spotted the trail you made from the platform,' said the new-comer. 'I seen something had been dragged away. I was bound to follow.' There was a part apology in his tone, as if he knew himself unwelcome. 'You might have been Indians,' he added, 'or any kind of riff-raff.'
'Quite so,' said the man of the camp. 'Not many of 'em hereabouts, I suppose?'
'One or two in a year, perhaps. And harmless, what there is of 'em; but as thievish as a set of jackdaws.'
'You in charge of the station?' asked the man of the camp, looking composedly down the canon and sipping at his tea.
'Yes, I'm in charge.'
'Alone?'
'Alone? Yes.'
'Fond of being alone?'
'Yes.'
'So am I.'
'All right.' The man in the moleskin trousers and the shapeless hat laughed, lounged indeterminately for a minute, rolled his quid in his cheek, spat, wiped his bearded mouth with the back of a sunburnt hand, and laughed again. 'There's room enough for both of us. Good-night, mate.'
'Good-night'
The keeper of the station strolled away with a backward glance, and the man of the camp sipped his tea and stared straight before him. The sound of the retreating footsteps had died away, when the Solitary raised a powerful voice and cried, 'Hillo!'
'Hillo!' came the answer, so muffled by the trees that it sounded as if from a considerable distance. The two men walked towards each other and met face to face. They had exchanged a greeting of good-night together, but the sun had some two hours to travel before it set upon the plains. Here it was out of sight already behind a monstrous hill, and although the dome of the sky was one translucent quiet splendour, dusk lay in the shadow of the mountain and the nearer shadows of the sombre pines.
'I want to ask you,' said the camper-out, 'if you're a teetotaler?'
'No,' said the station-keeper, 'not in particular.'
'Any whisky about here just now?'
'A gallon,' said the station-keeper; 'new in yesterday. Like a tot?'
'No.'
The word was snapped out savagely, and the station-keeper said 'Oh!' like an astonished echo.
'It's not at all unlikely that I may ask you for some,' the camper-out went on.
'You're sweetly welcome,' said the other; but he was waved down by an impatient gesture.
'It's not at all unlikely that I may come and beg for it. You're not to give me any. You understand?' The station-keeper stared in the dusk, but made no answer or sign of answer. 'It's not at all unlikely that I may come and try to persuade you that this was a joke, and that I didn't mean it. I may offer you ten dollars for a drink--twenty, thirty, a hundred. I'm not to have it. And if you allow yourself to be persuaded to give me so much as one teaspoonful, no matter when or why, I'll shoot you next day, so sure as I am a living sinner.'
'Oh, you will, will you?
'I will, by God!'
'That's all right,' said the station-keeper. 'You're a very pretty neighbour, you are, by George!'
'I am,' the other man assented--'a very pretty neighbour.'
They parted there without another word. The man of the camp went back to his fire, and the man of the station to his shanty. Away below the camp the ca?on was dense with shade, but far off up the valley one rod of blinding sunlight struck the most distant peak, and made its snows dazzle on the eye. The snow-peak shone for half an hour, and then by imperceptible changes mellowed to a clear pale gold. Then by fine gradations it grew to a pale rose, a deep rose, a cold gray, a solemn purple. By this time the sky beyond the peak was a fiery glory. This faded in turn, first in a gush of liquid amber, then in soft green, then in blue, then violet. A lone star scintillated over the for crest, went out, relit itself, went out again, twinkled for a time, and at last shone