Bridge shook his head wearily. Was he not himself
an accessory after the fact in the matter of two crimes
at least? These new friends, it seemed, were about to
topple him into the abyss which he had studiously
avoided for so long a time. But why should he permit
it? What were they to him?
A freight train was puffing into the siding at the Pay-
son station. Bridge could hear the complaining brakes
a mile away. It would be easy to leave the town and his
dangerous companions far behind him; but even as the
thought forced its way into his mind another obtruded
itself to shoulder aside the first. It was recollection of the
boy's words: "Oh, Bridge, I don't want to leave you--
ever."
"I couldn't do it," mused Bridge. "I don't know just
why; but I couldn't. That kid has certainly got me. The
first thing someone knows I'll be starting a foundlings'
home. There is no question but that I am the soft
mark, and I wonder why it is--why a kid I never saw
before last night has a strangle hold on my heart that I
can't shake loose--and don't want to. Now if it was a
girl I could understand it." Bridge stopped suddenly in
the middle of the road. From his attitude he might have
been startled either by a surprising noise or by a surpris-
ing thought.
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