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"Yes, and there's another reason," said Sidcup, with a shake of the head. "Isabel's not the only one; there's Alice." Derrick's eyes shone angrily now. "Oh, go to blazes!" he said. "You're out of your mind; you'll be telling me that all the blessed women in the company " "Well, we'll let her go," said Sidcup, "though it's the truth. What are you going to do?"
Two mules and two horses, white with dust, strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail's pace, their limp ears marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's tenants, a German, whom every one called "Bismarck," an excitable little man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow of broken English.
A few miles to the south he could just make out the line of wire fence that separated it from the third division; and to the north, seen faint and blue through the haze and shimmer of the noon sun, a long file of telegraph poles showed the line of the railroad and marked Derrick's northeast boundary. The road over which Presley was travelling ran almost diametrically straight.
But he had no mind to be killed to turn and fight till escape was blocked. His one thought was to leave pursuit behind. Weeks of flight had sharpened Dyke's every sense. As he turned into the Upper Road beyond Guadalajara, he saw the three men galloping down from Derrick's stock range, making for the road ahead of him. They would cut him off there. He swung the buckskin about.
Judging by the speed with which the novel grew in the next few weeks, I could tell that Derrick's nights were of the worst. He began, too, to look very thin and haggard, and I more than once noticed that curious 'sleep-walking' expression in his eyes; he seemed to me just like a man who has received his death-blow, yet still lingers half alive, half dead.
Derrick's eyes during this conversation were something wonderful to see, and long after, when we were not actually playing at anything, I used often to notice the same expression stealing over him, and would cry out, "There is the man defending the bridge again; I can see him in your eyes! Tell me what happened to him next!"
Captain Derrick's lifted eyebrows expressed his inability to solve the enigma. "I said just now if there was a wind it wasn't a wind belonging to this world " Mr. Harland turned upon him quickly.
"It's a fact that has counted against me now and then. Besides, I think you noticed my accent it's distinctly provincial, and not like yours or Derrick's as soon as I told you I was a relative of his. You see, I know my station. In fact, I'm almost aggressively proud of it." He spread out his hands in a forceful fashion. "It's a useful one."
It yapped round Derrick's legs; then suddenly its bark turned to a squeal and it held up one paw and regarded, with an eye of entreaty, the face of the man at whom it had been yapping. Derrick knew what had happened, and sought for the thing which had run into its foot. He found the thorn, and, not being able to extract it with his fingers, seated himself on the bank, and took out his pen-knife.
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