“_Will_ I?” and the grimy face filled with emotion, the big brown eyes glistened with unshed tears. “God knows, I'd rather have you than any one else, and I certainly am lonely enough!” The blackened hand went out and clasped Walton's, and, face to face, these new friends in adversity stood and silently vowed fidelity. “What is your name?” Fred asked. “Dick Warren,” the younger said. “I am from Kentucky--Louisville. I've got no close kin, and no money. I was a telegraph operator in Memphis till a month ago, but lost my job. Long-distance telephone is killing my business. I heard of Gate City--they say it is booming. I want to go there.” “I'll join you,” Walton said. “I've heard of it, too. Those, new towns are all right.” “You didn't tell me your name,” Dick suggested. “Oh, I forgot; why, it's Fred--it's Frederic Spencer.” He had given the seldom-used part of his Christian name, that of his maternal grandfather. “Some day I'll tell you all about myself, but not now--not now. Are you hungry, Dick?” The boy nodded slowly. It looked as if he were afraid that an admission of the whole truth might further discommode his new friend. “A little bit,” he said, “but I can make out for a while.” “We'll try a farm-house farther on,” Walton said, with an appreciative glance at the weary face before him. “I'll have to have a cup of coffee or I'll drop in my tracks.” The sun, now above the tree-tops, was beginning to beat fiercely upon them, and threatening much in the way of heat and sultry temperature later in the day. The activity of his mind and sympathies in behalf of his companion had in a measure dulled Walton's sense of his own condition, but as he trudged along by his companion the whole circumstance of his flight and the far-reaching consequences of his act came upon him anew. The agony within him now seemed to ooze from his body like a material substance, clogging his utterance and shackling his feet. CHAPTER VIII |THAT morning, about nine o'clock, old Simon Walton rode down to his bank in the one-horse buggy of antiquated type which had come into his possession years before in the foreclosure of a mortgage given by a poor farmer, and which, with its rusty springs and uncouth appearance, was quite in keeping with the character of its present owner. The bookkeepers were busy at their special duties, and scarcely gave him a glance over their ponderous ledgers as he came in at the front and walked to his desk in the rear. Hanging up his old slouch hat, and seating himself in his big revolving chair, his eyes fell on a stack of letters addressed to him. Rapidly shifting them through his stiff fingers, his attention was drawn to the only one which bore no stamp or postmark. He recognized the writing, and as he held it frowningly before him, his confidential clerk, Toby Lassiter, a colorless and bald young man of medium height, sparse mutton-chop whiskers, and soft, shrinking gray eyes, entered with a slip of paper.