Davison improved somewhat, but could not leave his bed. From the strong man he had been reduced until he was as helpless as a child; and for a time his mental strength was but little better than his physical.
Before going back to Denver Fogg took Justin aside.
"I don't see but I shall have to ask you to look after things here, Justin, while I am gone."
"It's a lucky thing that you're capable of taking hold now. Some one ought to visit the Purgatoire and see how the cattle are doing there, and some one must ride the ditch and look out for matters at this end of the line. Harkness can go to the Purgatoire; he will go if you ask him, though likely he wouldn't for me; and you can have charge here."
Fogg was mentally distressed. The shock had left its traces even on his buoyant nature. Through worry he had lost girth; the ponderous stomach on which the shining chain heaved up and down as he breathed heavily and talked was not so assertively protuberant, and his fat face had lost something of its unctuous shine. Somehow, though he could hardly account for it, for nothing in the shape of material wealth had so far been lost there by him, Paradise Valley oppressed him like a bad dream, and he was anxious to get away from it for a time.
"I shall be glad to do whatever I can," Justin declared.
"It's your own father who is lying in that room, which he'll never get out of I'm afraid, and I knew of course you'd be willing to help out now all you can. Clayton doesn't speak very favorably of the case. There isn't really anything the matter with Davison, so far as any one can see. It's his mind, I reckon; it must have been an awful shock to him, perfectly terrible, and it has simply laid him out. He thought everything of Ben. Well, I'm not a man to talk about the dead; but Ben would have tried the soul of a saint, and if I must say it to you I never saw anything very saintly in the character of your father."
"It's a good thing Harkness didn't move out of the valley when he left the ranch."
"A great thing for us now. He's dropped everything over on his farm and stays here almost night and day. I'll see that he doesn't lose by it."
While they were talking, William Sanders came up, chewing like a ruminant.