Buck roused at Michael’s coming and smiled feebly. “Mikky! I knowed you’d come!” he whispered feebly. “I’m done for, pardner. I ain’t long fer here, but I couldn’t go ’thout you knowin’. I’d meant to git jes’ this one haul an’ git away to some other country where it was safe, ’nen I was goin’ to try’n keep straight like you would want. I would a’got trough all right, but I seen her,—the pretty lady,—your girl,—standing in the aisle right ahin’ the c’ndct’r, jes’ es I wuz pullin’ the trigger knowed her right off, ’ith her eyes shinin’ like two stars; an’ I couldn’t run no resks. I ain’t never bin no bungler at my trade, but I hed to bungle this time ’cause I couldn’t shoot your girl! So I turned it jes’ in time an’ took it mese’f. She seen how ’twas ’ith me that time at your house, an’ she he’ped me git away. I sent her word I’d do the same fer her some day, bless her—an’ now—you tell her we’re square! I done the bunglin’ fer her sake, but I done it fer you too, pard—little pard—Mikky!” “Oh, Buck!” Michael knelt beside the poor bed and buried his face in the coverlet. “Oh, Buck! If you’d only had my chance!” he moaned. “Never you mind, Mikky! I ain’t squealin’. I knows how to take my dose. An’ mebbe, they’ll be some kind of a collidge whar I’m goin’, at I kin get a try at yet—don’t you fret, little pard—ef I git my chancet I’ll take it fer your sake!” The life breath seemed to be spent with the effort and Buck sank slowly into unconsciousness and so passed out of a life that had been all against him. Michael after doing all the last little things that were permitted him, sadly took his way home again. He reached the city in the morning and spent several hours putting to rights his business affairs; but by noon he found himself so unutterably weary that he took the two o’clock train down to the farm. Sam met him at the station. Sam somehow seemed to have an intuition when to meet him, and the two gripped hands and walked home together across the salt grass, Michael telling in low, halting tones all that Buck had said. Sam kept his face turned the other way, but once Michael got a view of it and he was sure there were tears on his cheeks. To think of Sam having tears for anything! Arrived at the cottage Sam told him he thought that Mr. Endicott was taking his afternoon nap upstairs, and that Miss Endicott had gone to ride with “some kind of a fancy woman in a auto” who had called to see her. Being very weary and yet unwilling to run the risk of waking Mr. Endicott by going upstairs, Michael asked Sam to bolt the dining-room door and give orders that he should not be disturbed for an hour; then he lay down on the leather couch in the living-room. The windows were open all around and the sweet breath of the opening roses stole in with the summer breeze, while the drone of bees and the pure notes of a song sparrow lulled him to sleep. Chapter XXIX