Perhaps a menace of publicity, rather than risk, was the cause of the
wearing strain on him. I began to get a closer insight into Sampson, and
in the absence of any conclusive evidence of his personal baseness I
felt pity for him.
In the beginning he had opposed me just because I did not happen to be a
cowboy he had selected. This latest interview with me, amounting in some
instances to confidence, proved absolutely that he had not the slightest
suspicion that I was otherwise than the cowboy I pretended to be.
Another interesting deduction was that he appeared to be out of patience
with Wright. In fact, I imagined I sensed something of fear and distrust
in this spoken attitude toward his relative. Not improbably here was the
internal strife between Sampson and Wright, and there flashed into my
mind, absolutely without reason, an idea that the clash was over Diane
Sampson.
I scouted this intuitive idea as absurd; but, just the same, it refused
to be dismissed.
As I turned my back on the coarse and exciting life in the saloons and
gambling hells, and spent all my time except when sleeping, out in the
windy open under blue sky and starry heaven, my spirit had an uplift.
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