Chapter 28

I have suspected, more than once, that his absences were due to entirely different reasons, that he was secretly conferring with a camp follower sedulously hidden from our eyes. But I could never be sure. And even when not out on the trail, in those strange days, he showed a preference for being alone with his strange paraphernalia. I tried not to be unduly curious as he fashioned and scrubbed white his low and bier-like work-table and set his boiling-pots in place and patiently sterilized each article and utensil …