He was parting,
under a cloud, from the Great White Way and all that the fanciful
title implied. He loved the rush and hum of the big city, and
experienced, standing there in the night, a dread of the silent
places he was soon to visit under such adverse conditions.
He loved the forest, too, and the plains and the mountains,
but knew that the burden he was carrying away from the Cameron
building would hang upon him like the Old-man-of-the-Sea until
he was back in the big city again with a name free from suspicion.
Nestor stood waiting while the boy took his sorrowful look about
the familiar scenes.
"I know what you're thinking about," he said, as they started on
again. "You're sorry to go not entirely because you love the city,
but because you feel as if you were turning coward in going at all.
You'll get over that as the case develops."
"I'm afraid it will be lonesome down there where we are going,"
said Fremont. "I had planned something very different. The Black
Bears were to go along, you know, and there was to be no
fugitive-from-justice business."
"Fugitive from injustice, you should say," said Nestor. "The Black
Bears may come along after a time, too. Anyway, you'll find plenty
of Boy Scouts on the border. I have an idea that Uncle Sam will
have his hands full keeping them out of trouble."
"He'll have a nest on his hands if they take a notion to flock over
the Rio Grande," replied Fremont. "It is hard to keep a boy away from
the front when there are campfires on the mountains.
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