He wanted her
mind free of the dead man, wanted him eliminated from her imagination.
The spiritual image of David must fade from her thoughts as his
corporeal part would soon fade in the desiccating desert airs. Alone
by the spring, held against Courant's side by an arm that trembled with
a passion she still only half understood, she told him of her last
interview with David. In an agony of self-accusation she whispered:
"Oh, Low, could he have killed himself?"
"Where?" said the man. "Haven't we searched every hole and corner of
the place? He couldn't have hidden his own body."
The only evidence that some mishap had befallen David was Daddy John's,
who, on the afternoon of the day of the disappearance had heard a cry,
a single sound, long and wild. It had seemed to come from the crest of
the rock, and the old man had listened and hearing no more had thought
it the yell of some animal far on the mountains. This gave color to
Courant's theory that the lost man had been seized by the Diggers.
Borne away along the summit of the ridge he would have shouted to them
and in that dry air the sound would have carried far.
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