Besides, we might as well stay here for a hour or so anyway, now, and see what the news is, since the cars has got in." He tapped the muzzle of his old rifle against the wagon wheel to shake out the dust, and then took a squint into the barrel.

"I can see through her," he said, "or any ways, halfway through, and I reckon she'll go off." Next he poked the magazine full of cartridges, and so tramped off down the mountain side.
Dan Anderson sat down on a bundle of bedding, and fell into a half dream in the warm morning sun.

There was time even yet for him to escape, he reflected.

He had but to step into the wagon, and drive on down the canon.

Constance Ellsworth--if indeed it were true that she had come again so near to him--need never know that he had been there.
How could he learn if she had indeed come?
How could he ever face her now?
Surely she could never understand.