UNMASKED
Lambert was out of the saddle at the sound of the shot. He sprang to the
shelter of the nearest rock, gun in hand, thinking with a sweep of
bitterness that Grace Kerr had led him into a trap. Whetstone was lying
still, his chin on the ground, one foreleg bent and gathered under him,
not in the posture of a dead horse, although Lambert knew that he was
dead. It was as if the brave beast struggled even after life to picture
the quality of his unconquerable will, and would not lie in death as
other horses lay, cold and inexpressive of anything but death, with
stiff limbs straight.
Lambert was incautious of his own safety in his great concern for his
horse. He stepped clear of his shelter to look at him, hoping against
his conviction that he would rise. Somebody laughed behind the rock on
his right, a laugh that plucked his heart up and cast it down, as a
drunken hand shatters a goblet upon the floor.
"I guess you'll never race me on _that_ horse again, fence-rider!"
There was the sound of movement behind the rock; in a moment Grace Kerr
rode out from her concealment, not more than four rods beyond the place
where his horse lay. She rode out boldly and indifferently before his
eyes, turned and looked back at him, her face white as an evening
primrose in the dusk, as if to tell him that she knew she was safe, even
within the distance of his arm, much as she despised his calling and his
kind.
Lambert put his gun back in its sheath, and she rode on, disappearing
again from his sight around the rock where the blasted valley of stones
branched upon its arid way. He took the saddle from his dead horse and
hid it behind a rock, not caring much whether he ever found it again,
his heart so heavy that it seemed to bow him to the ground.
So at last he knew her for what Vesta Philbrook had told him she
was--bad to the core of her heart. Kindness could not regenerate her,
love could not purge away the vicious strain of blood. She might have
scorned him, and he would have bent his head and loved her more; struck
him, and he would have chided her with a look of love. But when she sent
her bullet into poor old Whetstone's brain, she placed herself beyond
any absolution that even his soft heart could yield.
He bent over Whetstone, caressing his head, speaking to him in his old
terms of endearment, thinking of the many fruitless races he had run,
believing that his own race in the Bad Lands had come to an end.
If he had but turned back from the foot of the hill where he recognized
her, as duty demanded of him that he turn, and not pressed on with his
simple intention of friendliness which she was too shallow to appreciate
or understand, this heavy loss would have been spared him. For this dead
animal was more to him than comrade and friend; more than any man who
has not shared the good and evil times with his horse in the silent
places can comprehend.
He could not fight a woman; there was no measure of revenge that he
could take against her, but he prayed that she might suffer for this
deed of treachery to him with a pang intensified a thousand times
greater than his that hour. Will-o'-the-wisp she had been to him,
indeed, leading him a fool's race since she first came twinkling into
his life.
Bitter were his reflections, somber was his heart, as he turned to walk
the thirty miles or more that lay between him and the ranch, leaving old
Whetstone to the wolves.
* * * * *
Lambert was loading cattle nearly a week later when the sheriff returned
Vesta's horse, with apologies for its footsore and beaten state. He had
followed Kerr far beyond his jurisdiction, pushing him a hard race
through the hills, but the wily cattleman had evaded him in the end.
The sheriff advised Lambert to put in a bill against the county for the
loss of his horse, a proposal which Lambert considered with grave face
and in silence.
"No," he said at last, "I'll not put in a bill. I'll collect in my own
way from the one that owes me the debt."