Dale started: "Good Lord," he slowly exclaimed, "I'd forgot about him!" "It might be worth while remembering," the other suggested, "I've come in to talk over plans for saving you." "Savin' me! Me?" the mountaineer sprang to his feet in a burst of rage. "Only you an' the Cunnel know I've done it, an' if you'll keep yoh mouths shut there won't be any reason to save me, as you call it!" "This isn't your country," Brent held his temper. "Men aren't shot around here and carted off and buried without some sort of legal investigation. If Tusk's body is found, and it will be found if he's dead, someone's got to pay; someone must either stand trial or turn fugitive." "Great Gawd," Dale cried, slowly rocking his body from side to side. "Great Gawd! Great Gawd!" he repeated over and over. There was a flickering look about the eyes that made Brent catch his breath. It seemed for just a passing second that they had been converted into little balls of trembling red quicksilver; that was the only thing to which he could liken those eyes just then--red quicksilver. But this passed so quickly that it might have been a reflection from the lamp. At any rate, Dale was continuing: "Why, Brent, I can't go to jail! Nor I can't run away! Miss Jane says I'll be chuck full of education by next winter--how can I go to jail? She says every hope she has is in me!" Brent winced. "She says she trusts me more'n any feller she ever saw!" Brent winced again. "How can I go to jail?" So it was true. The engineer laughed, but it sounded more like the stirring of ice. "Don't divulge any more of her confidences. You've said enough--too much. I assure you. The thing to talk about now is how to save you. Are you sure you killed him?" "'Course I did. Do you reckon I miss a man at three rod?" "Then someone found his body, for it wasn't there when the Colonel went. Sooner or later the trail will lead here. I've thought, perhaps, you might slip away and go home with me. You can study there. Later, when things blow over, you can come back." "An' Miss Jane'll go?" he asked, hopefully. "Certainly not," Brent flushed. "I'll see what she says," Dale dubiously suggested. "You'll do nothing of the sort! Would you have her know about this mess?" "It seems like she's pretty apt to know," he answered. There was cruel truth in this; she was pretty apt to know beyond a doubt; and Brent pictured what it would mean to a girl who believed and had such implicit trust in one to find him a willful murderer. He thought a moment of the blind sister, the helpless one of patient waiting, of prayerful days; all dark, all dark, except for the hopeful coming of that day when her brother should stand irreproachable before the world and hear the applause of men. Slowly he spoke; it was of the second plan, formed in a white hot crucible of passion as Jane had walked away from him that morning.