She stood up, listening. From the distance came the low rumble of a
wagon. The men were returning. For some time she kept her face from him,
in attitude intent upon the distant rumble. She was thinking hard. She
could not be rude to Livingston, she could not very well explain, yet
she dared not allow him to accompany her back to Harris' ranch. What
should she do? Naturally he would insist, yet how could she tell him
that she feared for his safety? That would sound idiotic without a
complete explanation, for she was almost a total stranger to him. She
was concerned, that was the worst of it; but not without reason.
To-night the men were in a fever of revenge. If he were seen that would
settle it. To-morrow not one of them but would hesitate a long time
before committing such a crime; so, she argued, she had a right to be
concerned. But, after all, how foolish of her! Surely he was not a baby
that he could not protect himself! Did she expect to worry about him
during the whole summer? As she stood there gazing into the darkness, he
watched her, speechless, something that was not sorrow piercing his
heart with a greater pain. In her moment of tenderness she had become to
him a woman divine. He not only loved her, and knew it, but felt the
hopelessness of ever winning her. It was not exactly new, only revealed
to him, for it had come upon him gradually since the evening that she
had given him the water at the spring. He had cursed himself that night
for thinking of an Indian girl, he, a man with a name to sustain--a name
which counted little in this new country of the West. He tried to
imagine her as married to Carter. The thought sickened him. Carter might
be all right,--he had met him when he first came into the country; he
undoubtedly was all right,--but married to this girl! As he thought,
bitterly, forgetting even the dead young German at his feet, Hope was
alternately calling herself a fool and wondering what she could do to
prevent him from taking her home. But her fertile brain could not solve
it. She turned toward him with manner constrained and frigid. It was
shyness, nothing less, yet it affected him unpleasantly.
"The wagon is coming." Relief sounded in her tone, giving the lie to her
moment of tenderness. "You can hear it quite plainly. These corrals
should not be so far from the house. It must be nearly a mile. I suppose
you've not been in the business very long or you wouldn't have put it
here, on the edge of this cut-bank."
"You are right, Miss Hathaway, I have not been long in the business nor
in your country. This is quite new to me. Any place seemed good enough
for a corral, to my ignorant mind. Are you interested in the sheep
industry?" He spoke pleasantly. She threw back her head as she always
did when angered or excited.
"_Interested in the sheep industry?_ Well, I should say not! It never
occurred to me before as an industry, only as a nuisance. I hate sheep.
They ruin our range. One band can eat off miles and miles in a season,
and spoil all the water in the country. I would go miles out of my way
to avoid a band of them."
He began slowly to comprehend. "Your people have cattle, I understand.
Everyone up here seems to have cattle, too. I have heard that a strong
feeling of antagonism existed between sheep and cattle owners, but
thought nothing about it. I see that the feeling is not confined to the
men only. Does that explain this--outrage here to-night?"
She shrugged her shoulders slightly and turned away.
"You can draw your own conclusions. Why do you ask me? I am neither a
cattle-man nor a sheep-man, yet I could advise that you look about the
place and see, if you can, what is meant by it all--what damage has been
done. The wagon is still some distance away." Her shyness was fast
disappearing. The ground she trod now was her own. He smiled down at
her, finding her more natural, more prepossessing in that mood.
"I should have thought of that myself before this. After what you have
told me of your dislike for the animals, I can hardly ask you to go with
me, but I do not like to leave you here alone in the dark, for I must
take the lantern; however, I can wait until the men get here."
"You don't need to wait at all," she said quickly. "I'll go with you,
for I am curious to see what has been done--the cause of all this."
"Then come on," said the man briefly, turning toward the corral. She
kept near him, her eyes following the bright rays of the lantern that
swung in his hand. She feared that the boys had aimed too low, and was
nervously anxious to see just what mischief had been done. Almost
anything, she thought, would have been better than permitting those
thousands of sheep to be piled up at the bottom of the cut-bank and the
brutes of men to ride away satisfied with their dirty work.
Livingston examined the sheep while Hope, with a glance here and there
about the enclosure, went to one side and looked at the panels
carefully, discovering many bullet holes which told that her brave
scouts, more bloodthirsty than she suspected, had aimed too low.
"I think this one is dead," said Livingston, dragging out a sheep from
the midst of a number huddled in one corner. "Judging from the blood, I
should say it is shot. A few are piled up over there from fright, but so
many are sleeping that it will be impossible to determine the loss until
morning. The loss is small; probably a hundred piled up and hurt, not
more, from the looks of the band. I heard considerable firing, which
lasted about a minute. I wonder if my friends about here thought they
could kill off a band of sheep so easily."
Hope had not been searching for sheep, but for dead or wounded men, and
finding none breathed easier. She thought of the man whose hand she had
marked and who fell in such a panic among the sheep. It struck her as
being a very funny incident, and laughed a little. Livingston heard the
laugh and looked around in wonderment. He could see nothing amusing.
This Western girl was totally different from any girl that he had known,
English or American. She must possess a sense of humor out of all
proportion with anything of his conception. He thought a few minutes
before that he loved her, but she seemed far removed now--an absolute
stranger. The boyish laugh annoyed him. His manner as he turned to her
was quite as formally polite as ever her own had been. She resented it,
naturally.
"Step outside, please, until I drive in the ones near the gate, so that
I may close it."
Instinctively she obeyed, with a defiant look which was lost in the
dimness of the night, and hurrying past him never stopped until she drew
back with a shudder at the blanket-covered form of the dead herder. A
deep roar of thunder startled her into a half-suppressed scream. In the
lantern's light she had not noticed the steadily increasing darkness, or
the flashes of lightning. She felt herself shaking with a nervous
excitement which was half fear.
Thunderstorms often made her nervous, yet she would not have
acknowledged that she feared them, or any other thing. But her
nervousness was only the culmination of the night, every moment of which
had been a strain upon her. Another peal of thunder followed the first,
fairly weakening her. She ran to her horse and, mounting, rode up near
the corral. At the same instant the wagon came up, and Livingston,
having placed the panel in position, turned toward it. He was close
beside the girl before he saw her, and she, for an instant at a loss,
sat there speechless; but as he held up the lantern, looking at her by
its light, she blurted out, in a tone that she had little intention of
using: "I'm going. Hope you will get along all right. Good-night."
"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I will accompany you. My horse is here now. Just
a moment----"
"You don't need to go with me. Someone is waiting for me down there. I
think I hear a whistle."
"Then I will go along with you until you meet the person whose whistle
you hear. You do not imagine that I will allow you to go alone?"
She leaned toward him impulsively, placing her hand down upon his
shoulder.
"Listen," she said softly, "I heard no whistle. There is no one waiting
for me. A moment ago it seemed easy to lie to you, to make you believe
things that were not absolutely true, but I can't do it now, nor
again--_ever_. You think I am heartless, a creature of stone--indifferent.
It isn't so. My heart has held a little place for aching all these
years. Think of me as half-witted,--idiotic,--but not _that_. Listen to
me. You have such a heart--such _tenderness_--you are good and kind. You
will understand me--or try to, and not be offended. I want to go home by
myself. I _must_ go back _alone_. There is a reason which I will tell
you--sometime. I ask as a favor--as a friend to a friend, that you will
stay behind."
"But are you not afraid?"
She interrupted him. "Afraid? Not I! Why, I was born here, and am a part
of it, and it of me! Ask your men there, they know. I want to ride like
the wind--alone--ahead of the storm, to get there soon. I am tired." Her
low, quick speech bewildered him. Her words were too inconsistent, too
hurried, to convey any real meaning.
"Will you ride with one of my men?" he asked.
"Oh, why _can't_ you let me do as I wish!" she cried impatiently. "I
want to go alone."
"It seems quite evident that you do not want _my_ company, but one of
the men must go and take a lantern. It's too dark to see the road." His
tone was decisive.
She leaned toward him again. This time her words fell harshly.
"You are a man of your word?"
"I hope so; but that is not the issue just now."
"Then promise you will not go with me to-night."
"No need of that. I have decided to send one of my men--and I think," he
added briefly, "that there is no necessity of prolonging this
conversation. Good-evening."
"Then you will not come!" she exclaimed, relieved. "And never mind
telling your man, for I shall ride like the wind, and will be halfway
home before he can get on his horse." She turned like a flash. The quick
beats of her horse's hoofs echoed back until the sound was lost in the
distance.
Livingston stood silent, listening, until he could no longer hear the
dull notes on the dry earth--his thoughts perturbed as the night.