"
"What restrained you?"
"The difficulty of finding a hiding-place. If my body were discovered,
I knew that it would be awful for you."
"Thanks."
"It's easy to find a hole, but it's not easy to pull a hole in after
one--eh? Still, I thought I should find some wild gulch on the Santa
Barbara trail, amongst those God-forsaken foothills. The buzzards
would pull the hole in within forty-eight hours."
"Ah! the buzzards." I shivered, seeing once more those grim sextons of
the Pacific seaboard.
"I found the right place; and just then I saw the stage crawling up
the grade. Immediately the excitement of a new sensation gripped me. I
had a taste of it when I opened your safe. It seized me again,
relentlessly. If I were successful, I might begin again; if I failed,
I could shoot myself without imposing an atrocious remorse upon you.
Well, the pluck of that driver upset my plans--the plans of an
amateur. I ought to have held them up on the upgrade."
"And after you failed----"
"Ah! after I failed I had a lucid interval. Don't laugh! I was hungry
and thirsty. The most pressing need of my nature at that moment was a
square meal.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169