I
never stayed long in one place. I never had but one idea. I never
rested. Four years went by, an' I knowed every trail in northern
Utah. I kept on an' as time went by, an' I'd begun to grow old in
my search, I had firmer, blinder faith in whatever was guidin'
me. Once I read about a feller who sailed the seven seas an'
traveled the world, an' he had a story to tell, an' whenever he
seen the man to whom he must tell that story he knowed him on
sight. I was like that, only I had a question to ask. An' always
I knew the man of whom I must ask. So I never really lost the
trail, though for many years it was the dimmest trail ever
followed by any man.
"Then come a change in my luck. Along in Central Utah I rounded
up Hurd, an' I whispered somethin' in his ear, an' watched his
face, an' then throwed a gun against his bowels. An' he died with
his teeth so tight shut I couldn't have pried them open with a
knife. Slack an' Metzger that same year both heard me whisper the
same question, an' neither would they speak a word when they lay
dyin'. Long before I'd learned no man of this breed or class--or
God knows what--would give up any secrets! I had to see in a
man's fear of death the connections with Milly Erne's fate. An'
as the years passed at long intervals I would find such a man.
"So as I drifted on the long trail down into southern Utah my
name preceded me, an' I had to meet a people prepared for me, an'
ready with guns.
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