What had been the implication in General Lodge's strange
words?
He gazed with awe at the tooth-marks on the little book. How had
Casey come by anything of Beauty Stanton's? Could it be true that
she was dead?
Then again he was accosted in the street. A heavy hand, a deep voice
arrested his progress. His eyes, sweeping up from the path, saw
fringed and beaded buckskin, a stalwart form, a bronzed and bearded
face, and keen, gray eyes warm with the light of gladness. He was
gripped in hands of iron.
"Son! hyar you air--an' it's the savin' of me!" exclaimed a deep,
familiar voice.
"Slingerland!" cried Neale, and he grasped his old friend as a
drowning man at an anchor-rope. "My God! What will happen next? ...
Oh, I'm glad to find you! ... All these years! Slingerland, I'm in
trouble!"
"Son, I reckon I know," replied the other.
Neale shivered. Why did men look at him so? This old trapper had too
much simplicity, too big a heart, to hide his pity.
"Come! Somewhere--out of the crowd!" cried Neale, dragging at
Slingerland. "Don't talk. Don't tell me anything. Wait! ... I've a
letter here--that's going to be hell!"
Neale stumbled along out of the crowded street, he did not know
where, and with death in his soul he opened Beauty Stanton's book.
And he read:
You called me that horrible name.
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