"Hans said Lyn was at Walsh," I remarked. "I don't think she was there,
this morning. But she might be due to arrive there. Hang it all, Mac,
what the dickens chased you away from the Canadian?"
"Looking back, I can't just say what it was," he presently replied, in a
hard, matter-of-fact tone. "You see, one's feelings can change, Sarge.
It looks different to me now than it did then. I reckon I could have
written essays on the futility of sentiment, and the damned silliness of
a man who thinks he cares for a woman. But I'm past that stage. And so
I can't say for sure just how it was or why. Something came up between
me and Lyn--and I drifted, and kept drifting. Went through Colorado,
Wyoming, Montana; finally rambled here, and went into the Force
because--well, because a man with anything to him can go to the top. A
man must play at something, and this looked like a good game."
There was a note of something that I'd never heard in MacRae's voice
before; neither bitterness nor anger nor sorrow nor lonesomeness, and
yet there was a hint of each, but so slight, so elusive I couldn't grasp
it. I remembered that the last sentence MacRae had spoken to me in the
South was a message to Lyn Rowan, a message that I never had the
pleasure of delivering, for my hasty flitting took me out other trails
than the one that led to the home ranch.
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