He must know, beyond any equivocation.
There was a simple way to know, and that way Hollister took while the
embers of his noonday fire still glowed red on the hearth. He took his
glasses and went down to the valley floor.
It would have been a simple matter and the essence of directness to
walk boldly up and rap at the door. Certainly he would not be
recognized. He could account for himself as a traveler in need of
matches, some trifling thing to be borrowed. The wilderness is a
destroyer of conventions. The passer-by needs to observe no ceremony.
He comes from nowhere and passes into the unknown, unquestioned as to
his name, his purpose, or his destination. That is the way of all
frontiers.
But Hollister wished to see without being seen. He did not know why.
He did not attempt to fathom his reluctance for open approach. In the
social isolation which his disfigurement had inflicted upon him,
Hollister had become as much guided by instinct in his actions and
impulses as by any coldly reasoned process. He was moved to his
stealthy approach now by an instinct which he obeyed as blindly as the
crawling worm.
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