THE SUPERB MOMENT
"But you will have to go back some time!" Carron insisted. "You will have to go day after tomorrow when I am gone. Why not now? What's the difference?" He was exasperated, but he couldn't help smiling. Ferrier was a humorous figure. He had been stopped on his way up the trail with stuff from the first camp they had made down the river. A camp kettle hung upon one arm; a rifle lay in the hollow of the other; a tragic stubbornness was in his face. "There is a difference," he said. In the pause they heard Son of the Wind renew his plungings, making the hollow stream bed multiply echoes. Ferrier glanced at the trees, at the steep ascent of the Sphinx in front of him, then at Carron. He seemed to be a man with more than one dread. "When you are gone, you're gone," he began rapidly, "and the horse too, and then I'll be certain they'll never find out. But while I know you are here, if I should see them, and anything should be said, I'd get rattled; I know I would! I'd give it away! They'd get it out of me."
Carron's lips opened to laughter. "Come! That's no reason at all—a girl's reason!" He glanced past Ferrier to the opening in the trees, which gave a glimpse of the ford at a little distance. He had been at broad grin, and the expression continued to draw his lips, but in his mind he ceased to be amused.
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