FOREBODINGS
To the Eastern eye, blinded by local color, the Four Peaks country
looked like a large and pleasantly variegated cactus garden, sparsely
populated with rollicking, fun-loving cowboys who wore their
interesting six-shooters solely to keep their balance in the saddle.
The new grass stood untrampled beneath the bushes on Bronco Mesa,
there were buds and flowers everywhere, and the wind was as sweet and
untainted as if it drew out of Eden. But somewhere, somewhere in that
great wilderness of peaks which lay to the south and through which
only the dogged sheepmen could fight their way, stealthily hidden, yet
watching, lay Jasper Swope and his sheep. And not only Jasper with his
pet man-killing Chihuahuano and all those low-browed _compadres_ whom
he called by circumlocution "brothers," but Jim, sore with his defeat,
and many others--and every man armed.
After the first rain they had disappeared from the desert absolutely,
their tracks pointing toward the east. The drought had hit them hard,
and the cold of Winter; yet the ewes had lambed in the springtime,
and as if by magic the tender grass shot up to feed their little ones.
Surely, God was good to the sheep. They were ranging far, now that the
shearing was over, but though they fed to the topmost peaks of the
Superstitions, driving the crooked-horned mountain sheep from their
pastures, their destiny lay to the north, in the cool valleys of the
Sierra Blancas; and there in the end they would go, though they left
havoc in their wake. Once before the sheep had vanished in this same
way, mysteriously; and at last, travelling circuitous ways and dealing
misery to many Tonto cowmen, they had poured over the very summit of
the Four Peaks and down upon Bronco Mesa. And now, though they were
hidden, every man on the round-up felt their presence and knew that
the upper range was in jeopardy.
After amusing the ladies with inconsequential tales, the _rodeo_
outfit therefore rose up and was gone before the light, raking the
exposed lowland for its toll of half-fed steers; and even Rufus Hardy,
the parlor-broke friend and lover, slipped away before any of them
were stirring and rode far up along the river. What a river it was
now, this unbridled Salagua which had been their moat and rampart for
so many years! Its waters flowed thin and impotent over the rapids,
lying in clear pools against the base of the black cliffs, and the
current that had uprooted trees like feathers was turned aside by a
snag. Where before the sheep had hung upon its flank hoping at last to
swim at Hidden Water, the old ewes now strayed along its sandy bed,
browsing upon the willows. From the towering black buttes that walled
in Hell's Hip Pocket to the Rio Verde it was passable for a spring
lamb, and though the thin grass stood up fresh and green on the mesas
the river showed nothing but drought. Drought and the sheep, those
were the twin evils of the Four Peaks country; they lowered the price
of cattle and set men to riding the range restlessly. For the drought
is a visitation of God, to be accepted and endured, but sheep may be
turned back.
As he rode rapidly along the river trail, halting on each ridge to
search the landscape for sheep, Hardy's conscience smote him for the
single day he had spent in camp, dallying within sight of Kitty or
talking with Lucy Ware. One such day, if the sheepmen were prepared,
and Bronco Mesa would be a desert. Threats, violence, strategy, would
be of no avail, once the evil was done; the sheep must be turned back
at the river or they would swarm in upon the whole upper range. One
man could turn them there, for it was the dead line; but once across
they would scatter like quail before a hawk, crouching and hiding in
the gulches, refusing to move, yet creeping with brutish stubbornness
toward the north and leaving a clean swath behind. There were four
passes that cut their way down from the southern mountains to the
banks of the river, old trails of Apaches and wild game, and to quiet
his mind Hardy looked for tracks at every crossing before he turned
Chapuli's head toward camp.
The smoke was drifting from the chimney when, late in the afternoon,
he rode past the door and saw Lucy Ware inside, struggling with an
iron kettle before the fireplace. Poor Lucy, she had undertaken a hard
problem, for there is as much difference between camp cooking and home
cooking as there is between a Dutch oven and a steel range, and a
cooking-school graduate has to forget a whole lot before she can catch
the knack of the open fire. For the second time that day Rufus Hardy's
conscience, so lately exercised over his neglect of the sheep, rose up
and rebuked him. Throwing Chapuli into the corral he kicked off his
spurs and shaps and gave Lucy her first lesson in frontier cookery;
taught her by the force of his example how to waste her wood and save
her back; and at the end of the short demonstration he sat down
without ceremony, and fell to eating.
"Excuse me," he said, "if I seem to be greedy, but I had my breakfast
before sun-up. Where's your father, and Kitty?"
"Oh, they had the Mexican boy catch their horses for them and have
ridden up the valley to watch for the cattle. I stayed behind to
make my first water color, and then--I thought you would be coming
back soon, so I tried to cook supper instead. I'm a pretty good
housekeeper--at home," she said apologetically.
Hardy watched her as she experimented painstakingly with the fire,
scooping out shovelfuls of coal from beneath the glowing logs and
planting her pots and kettles upon them with a hooked stick, according
to instructions.
"You look like a picture of one of our sainted Puritan ancestors," he
observed, at last, "and that's just exactly the way they cooked,
too--over an open fire. How does it feel to be Priscilla?"
"Well, if Priscilla's hands looked like mine," exclaimed Lucy
despairingly, "John Alden must have been madly in love with her. How
_do_ you keep yours clean?"
"That's a secret," replied Hardy, "but I'll tell you. I never touch
the outside of a pot--and I scour them with sandsoap. But I wish you'd
stop cooking, Lucy; it makes me feel conscience-stricken. You are my
guests, remember, even if I do go off and neglect you for a whole day;
and when you go back to Berkeley I want you to have something more
interesting than housekeeping to talk about. Didn't I see two ladies'
saddles out in the wagon?"
Miss Lucy's eyes lighted up with pleasure as, anticipating his drift,
she nodded her head.
"Well then," said Hardy, with finality, "if you'll get up early in the
morning, I'll catch you a little pony that I gentled myself, and we
can ride up the river together. How does that strike you?"
"Fine!" exclaimed Lucy, with sudden enthusiasm.
"Oh, Rufus," she cried impulsively, "if you only knew how weak and
helpless a thing it is to be a woman--and how glad we are to be
noticed! Why, I was just thinking before you came in that about the
only really helpful thing a woman could do in this world was just to
stay around home and cook the meals."
"Well, you just let me cook those meals for a while," said Rufus, with
brotherly authority, "and come out and be a man for a change. Can you
ride pretty well?"
Lucy glanced at him questioningly, and thought she read what was in
his mind.
"Yes," she said, "I can ride, but--but I just couldn't bring myself to
dress like Kitty!" she burst out. "I know it's foolish, but I can't
bear to have people notice me so. But I'll be a man in everything
else, if you'll only give me a chance." She stood before him,
radiant, eager, her eyes sparkling like a child's, and suddenly Hardy
realized how much she lost by being always with Kitty. Seen by herself
she was as lithe and graceful as a fairy, with a steady gaze very rare
in women, and eyes which changed like the shadows in a pool, answering
every mood in wind and sky, yet always with their own true light. Her
cheeks glowed with the fresh color which her father's still retained,
and she had inherited his generous nature, too; but in mind and
stature she took after her dainty mother, whose exquisite grace and
beauty had made her one of the elect. Perhaps it was this quality of
the petite in her which appealed to him--for a little man cannot
endure to be laughed at for his size, even in secret--or perhaps it
was only the intuitive response to a something which in his
prepossession he only vaguely sensed, but Rufus Hardy felt his heart
go out to her in a moment and his voice sank once more to the
caressing fulness which she most loved to hear.
"Ah, Lucy," he said, "you need never try to be a man in order to ride
with me. It would be hard luck if a woman like you had to ask twice
for anything. Will you go out with me every day? No? Then I shall ask
you every day, and you shall go whenever you please! But you know how
it is. The sheepmen are hiding along the river waiting for a chance
to sneak across, and if I should stay in camp for a single day they
might make a break--and then we would have a war. Your father doesn't
understand that, but I do; and I know that Jeff will never submit to
being sheeped out without a fight. Can't you see how it is? I should
like to stay here and entertain you, and yet I must protect your
father's cattle, and I must protect Jeff. But if you will ride out
with me when it is not too hot, I--it--well, you'll go to-morrow,
won't you?"
He rose and took her hand impulsively, and then as quickly dropped it
and turned away. The muffled _chuck, chuck,_ of a horse's feet
stepping past the door smote upon his ear, and a moment later a clear
voice hailed them.
"What _are_ you children chattering about in there?" cried Kitty
Bonnair, and Hardy, after a guilty silence, replied:
"The ways of the weary world. Won't you come in and have the last
word?"
He stepped out and held Pinto by the head, and Kitty dropped off and
sank wearily into a rawhide chair.
"Oh, I'm too tired to talk, riding around trying to find those
cattle--and just as I was tired out we saw them coming, away out on
The Rolls. Lucy, do put on your riding habit and go back on
Pinto--you haven't been out of the house to-day!"
As half an hour later Lucy Ware trotted obediently away, riding up the
canyon toward the distant bawling of cattle, Kitty turned suddenly upon
Hardy with half-closed, accusing eyes.
"You seem to be very happy with Lucy," she said, with an aggrieved
smile. "But why," she continued, with quickening animus, "why should
you seek to avoid me? Isn't it enough that I should come clear down
here to see you? But when I want to have a word with you after our
long silence I have to scheme and manage like a gypsy!"
She paused, and flicked her booted leg with the lash of a horsehair
quirt, glancing at him furtively with eyes that drooped with an
appealing sadness.
"If I had known how hard-hearted you could be," she said, after a
silence, "I should never have spoken as I did, if the words choked me.
But now that I have come part way and offered my poor friendship
again, you might--oh Rufus, how could you be so inconsiderate! No one
can ever know what I suffered when you left that way. Every one knew
we were the best of friends, and several people even knew that you had
been to see me. And then, without a word, without a sign, with no
explanation, to leave and be gone for years--think what they must
have thought! Oh, it was too humiliating!"
She paused again, and to Hardy's apprehensive eyes she seemed on the
verge of tears. So he spoke, blindly and without consideration, filled
with a man's anxiety to stave off this final catastrophe.
"I'm sorry," he began, though he had never meant to say it, "but--but
there was nothing else to do! You--you told me to go. You said you
never wanted to see me again, and--you were not very kind to me,
then." He paused, and at the memory of those last words of hers,
uttered long ago, the flush of shame mantled his cheeks.
"Every man has his limit," he said bluntly, "and I am no dog, to be
scolded and punished and sent away. I have been ashamed many times for
what I did, but I had to keep my own respect--and so I left. Is it too
much for a man to go away when he is told?"
Kitty Bonnair fixed him with her dark eyes and shook her head sadly.
"Ah, Rufus," she sighed, "when will you ever learn that a woman does
not always mean all she says? When you had made me so happy by your
tender consideration--for you could be considerate when you chose--I
said that I loved you; and I did, but not in the way you thought. I
did mean it at the moment, from my heart, but not for life--it was no
surrender, no promise--I just loved you for being so good and kind.
But when, taking advantage of what I said in a moment of weakness, you
tried to claim that which I had never given, I--I said more than I
meant again. Don't you understand? I was hurt, and disappointed, and I
spoke without thinking, but you must not hold that against me forever!
And after I have come clear down here--to avoid me--to always go out
with Lucy and leave me alone--to force me to arrange a meeting--"
She stopped, and Hardy shifted uneasily in his seat. In his heart of
hearts he had realized from the first his inequality in this losing
battle. He was like a man who goes into a contest conquered already by
his ineptitude at arms--and Kitty would have her way! Never but once
had he defied her power, and that had been more a flight than a
victory. There was fighting blood in his veins, but it turned to water
before her. He despised himself for it; but all the while, in a
shifting, browbeaten way, he was seeking for an excuse to capitulate.
"But, Kitty," he pleaded, "be reasonable. I have my duties down
here--the sheep are trying to come in on us--I have to patrol the
river. This morning before you were awake I was in the saddle, and
now I have just returned. To-morrow I shall be off again, so how can I
arrange a meeting?"
He held out his hands to her appealingly, carried away by the force of
his own logic.
"You might at least invite me to go with you," she said. "Unless you
expect me to spend all my time getting lost with Judge Ware," she
added, with a plaintive break in her voice.
"Why, yes--yes," began Hardy haltingly. "I--I have asked Lucy to go
with me to-morrow, but--"
"Oh, thank you--thank you!" burst out Kitty mockingly. "But what?"
"Why, I thought you might like to come along too," suggested Hardy
awkwardly.
"What? And rob her of all her pleasure?" Kitty smiled bitterly as
she turned upon him. "Why, Rufus Hardy," she exclaimed, indignantly,
"and she just dotes on every word you say! Yes, she does--any one
can see that she simply adores you. I declare, Rufus, your lack of
perception would make an angel weep--especially if it was a lady
angel. But you may as well understand once and for all that I will
never deprive dear, patient, long-suffering Lucy of anything she sets
her heart on. No, I will _not_ go with you the next day. If you
haven't consideration enough to invite me first, I have sense enough
to stay away. It was only yesterday that you took Lucy up to Hidden
Water, and to-day I find you with her again; and to-morrow--well, I
perceive that I must amuse myself down here. But--oh, look, look!
There's a cowboy--up on that high cliff!"
She started up, pointing at a horseman who was spurring furiously
along the side of the canyon after a runaway steer.
"Oh, look!" she cried again, as Hardy surveyed him indifferently. "He
is whirling his lasso. Oh! He has thrown it over that big cow's horns!
Goodness me, where is my horse? No, I am going on foot, then! Oh,
Lucy--Lucy dear," she screamed, waving her hand wildly, "do let me
have Pinto, just for a moment! All right--and Lucy--wasn't that Mr.
Creede?" She lingered on the ground long enough to give her an
ecstatic kiss and then swung up into the saddle. "Yes, I knew it--and
isn't he just perfectly grand on that big horse? Oh, I've been wanting
to see this all my life--and I owe it all to you!"
With a smile and a gay salutation, she leaned forward and galloped out
into the riot and confusion of the _rodeo_, skirting the edge of the
bellowing herd until she disappeared in the dust. And somehow, even by
the childlike obliviousness with which she scampered away, she
managed to convey a pang to her errant lover which clutched at his
heart for days.
And what days those were for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was
his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as
cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty
rode forth to be a cowboy it was the _rodeo_ boss, indulgent, but
aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly
assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could
possibly come. And Kitty, sensing the deceit, had as soberly amused
herself by gathering flowers among the rocks. But the next day, having
learned her first lesson, she struck for a job to ride, and it was the
giddy-headed lover who permitted her to accompany him--although not
from any obvious or selfish motives.
Miss Bonnair was the guest of the ranch, her life and welfare being
placed for the time in the keeping of the boss. What kind of a foreman
would it be who would turn her over to a hireling or intrust her
innocent mind to a depraved individual like Bill Lightfoot? And all
the decent cowmen were scared of her, so who was naturally indicated
and elected but Jefferson D. Creede?
There wasn't any branding at the round corral that night. The gather
was a fizzle, for some reason, though Miss Kitty rode Pinto to a
finish and killed a rattlesnake with Creede's own gun. Well, they
never did catch many cattle the first few days,--after they had picked
up the tame bunch that hung around the water,--and the dry weather
seemed to have driven the cows in from The Rolls. But when they came
in the second afternoon, with only a half of their gather, Creede rode
out from the hold-up herd to meet them, looking pretty black.
It is the duty of a _rodeo_ boss to know what is going on, if he has
to ride a horse to death to find out; and the next day, after sending
every man down his ridge, Jeff left Kitty Bonnair talking lion hunt
with old Bill Johnson who had ridden clear over from Hell's Hip Pocket
to gaze upon this horse-riding Diana, and disappeared. As a result,
Bat Wings was lathered to a fine dirt-color and there was one man in
particular that the boss wanted to see.
"Jim," he said, riding up to where one of the Clark boys was sullenly
lashing the drag with his _reata_, "what in the hell do you mean by
lettin' all them cattle get away? Yes, you did too. I saw you tryin'
to turn 'em back, so don't try to hand me anything like that. I used
to think you was a good puncher, Jim, but a man that can't keep a herd
of cows from goin' through a box pass ought to be smokin' cigarettes
on the day herd. You bet ye! All you had to do was be there--and
that's jest exactly where you wasn't! I was up on top of that rocky
butte, and I know. You was half a mile up the canyon mousin' around in
them cliffs, that's where you was, and the only question I want to ask
is, Did you find the Lost Dutchman? No? Then what in hell was you
doin'?"
The _rodeo_ boss crowded his horse in close and thrust his face
forward until he could look him squarely in the eye, and Clark jerked
back his head resentfully.
"What is it to you?" he demanded belligerently.
"Oh, nawthin'," returned the boss lightly, "jest wanted to know."
"Uhr!" grunted the cowboy contemptuously. "Well, I was killin' snakes,
then! What ye goin' to do about it?"
"Snakes!" cried Creede incredulously. "Killin' snakes! Since when did
you call a feud on them?"
"Since thet young lady come," replied Clark, glancing around to see if
any one had the nerve to laugh. "I heerd her say she was collectin'
rattles; an' I thought, while I was waitin', I might as well rustle up
a few. Oh, you don't need to look pop-eyed--they's others!"
He rolled his eyes significantly at the group of assembled cowboys,
and Creede took it all in at a flash. There _were_ others--he himself
had a set of rattles in his shap pocket that were not two hours from
the stump. The situation called for diplomacy.
"Well," he drawled, scratching his bushy head to cover his confusion,
"this reflects great credit on your bringin' up, Jim, and I'm sure
Miss Bonnair will appreciate what you've done for her, especially
as I happened to notice a couple o' head of your own cows in that
bunch, but it's a mighty expensive way to collect snake-tails. We
ain't gittin' the cattle, boys; that's the size of it, and they're as
much yours as they are mine. Now I suggest that we run these few
we've got down to the corral and brand 'em quick--and then the whole
shootin'-match goes over to the big white cliff and rounds up every
rattlesnake in the rock pile! Is it a go?"
"Sure!" yelled the bunch impetuously, and as they charged down upon
the herd Creede quietly fished out his snake-tail and dropped it in
the dirt.
If he lacked a virtue he could feign it, anyhow--but there was no
doubt about it, Miss Kitty was putting his _rodeo_ on the bum. There
had never been so many men to feed and so few calves to brand in the
history of Hidden Water. Even old Bill Johnson had got the fever from
hearing the boys talk and was hanging around the fire. But then, what
were a few head of cows compared to--well, what was it, anyway? The
only man who could stay away was Rufe, and he was in good company.
Yet Creede was not satisfied with this explanation. Miss Kitty was
always asking questions about Rufe--they had known each other well in
Berkeley--and at the same time the little partner with whom he had
been so friendly never came around any more. He was always very
polite, and she called him by his first name--and then one of them
rode up the river and the other followed the round-up.
The night after the big snake-killing Jefferson Creede picked up his
blankets and moved quietly back to the _ramada_ with Hardy.
"Them locoed punchers have been skinnin' rattlers and stretchin' their
hides," he said, "until the camp stinks like a buzzard roost. I'm due
to have some bad dreams to-night anyhow, on the strength of this
snake-killin', but it'd give me the jumpin' jimjams if I had to sleep
next to them remains. Didn't git back in time to join in, did ye?
Well, no great loss. I always did intend to clean out that snake hole
over'n the cliff, and the boys was stoppin' every time they heard one
sing, anyhow, in order to git the rattles for Miss Bonnair, so I
thought we might as well git it off our minds before somethin' worse
turned up. See any sheep tracks?"
He kicked off his boots, poked his six-shooter under his pillow, and
settled down comfortably for the night.
"Nary one, eh?" he repeated musingly. "Well, when you see one you'll
see a million--that's been my experience. But say, Rufe, why don't you
come and ride with the boys once in a while? The _rodeo_ has been
goin' rotten this year--we ain't gittin' half of 'em--and you'd come
in mighty handy. Besides, I've been braggin' you up to Miss Bonnair."
He dropped this last as a bait, but Hardy did not respond.
"I told her you was the best bronco-buster in the Four Peaks country,"
continued Creede deliberately, "and that you could drift Chapuli over
the rocks like a sand lizard; but I'm too heavy for anything like that
now, and Bill Lightfoot has been puttin' up the fancy work, so far.
You know how I like Bill."
Once more he waited for an answer, but Hardy was wrestling with those
elementary passions which have been making trouble since Helen of Troy
left home, and he received the remark in silence.
"I'll tell you, Rufe," said Creede, lowering his voice confidentially.
"Of course I see how it is with you and Miss Ware, and I'm glad of it;
but things ain't goin' so lovely for me. It ain't my fault if Miss
Bonnair happens to like my company, but Bill and some of the other
boys have got their backs up over it, and they've practically gone on
a strike. Leastwise we ain't gittin' the cattle, and God knows the
range won't more 'n carry what's left. I've got to git out and do some
ridin', and at the same time I want to do the right thing by Miss
Bonnair, so if you could jest kindly come along with us to-morrow I'll
be much obliged."
The elemental passions--man-love, jealousy, the lust for possession--are
ugly things at best, even when locked in the bosom of a poet. In their
simplest terms they make for treachery and stealth; but when
complicated with the higher call of friendship and duty they gall a
man like the chains of Prometheus and send the dragon-clawed eagles
of Jove to tear at his vitals. Never until this naive confession had
Hardy suspected the sanity of his friend nor the constancy of Kitty
Bonnair. That she was capable of such an adventure he had never
dreamed--and yet--and yet--where was there a more masterful man than
Jeff? Anything can happen in love; and who was there more capable of
winning a romantic woman's regard than good-natured, impulsive,
domineering Jeff?
The thoughts flashed through his brain with the rapidity of
lightning, and only his instinct of reserve protected him from his
blundering tongue.
"I--I was--" he began, and stopped short. The idea of loyalty had
ruled his mind so long that it had become a habit, ill suited to the
cause of a jealous lover; and Jeff had confided to him as a child
might run to its mother. Should a man take advantage of his friend's
innocence to deprive him of that for which they both strove? Hardy
fought the devil away and spoke again, quietly.
"I was going up the river to-morrow, Jeff," he said. "Seemed to me I
saw a kind of smoke, or dust, over south of Hell's Hip Pocket this
afternoon--and we can't take any chances now. That would take all day,
you know."
He lay still after that, his brain whirling with contending emotions.
Each evening as he listened to the music of her laughter he had
resolved to quit his lonely watch and snatch from life the pleasure of
a single day with Kitty, such days as they used to have when he was
her unacknowledged lover and all the world was young. Then he could
always please her. He could bend to her moods like a willow, braving
the storms of her displeasure, which only drew them closer in the end,
secure in the hope of her ultimate yielding. But now the two barren
years lay between; years which had stiffened his jaw and left him
rough in his ways; years which had wrought some change in her, he knew
not what. A single day might solve the crux--nay, it might bring the
great happiness of which he dreamed. But each morning as he woke with
the dawn he saw that mighty army without banners, the sheep, marching
upon their stronghold, the broad mesa which fed the last of Jeff's
cows, and Judge Ware's, and Lucy's--and sprang from his blankets. And
when the sun rose and Kitty came forth he was far away. But now--
He was awakened from his dreams by the voice of Creede, low, vibrant,
full of brotherly love.
"Rufe," he was saying, "Miss Bonnair has told me a lot about you--a
lot I didn't know. She likes you, boy, and she's a good woman. I never
knowed but one like her, and that was Sallie Winship. You mustn't let
anything that's happened stand between you. Of course she never said
anything--never said a word--but I'm wise that way; I can tell by
their voice, and all that. You want to let them dam' sheep go for a
day or two and git this thing patched up."
He paused, and Hardy's mind whirled backward, upsetting his fears,
unmaking his conclusions. It was Jeff the friend who spoke, Jeff
the peacemaker, who had stampeded him by the equivocation of his
words. But now the voice broke in again, apologetic, solicitous,
self-seeking.
"Besides, that son-of-a-gun, Bill Lightfoot, has been tryin' to cut me
out."
God! There it hit him hard. Kitty, the immaculate, the exquisite, the
friend of poets and artists, the woman he had loved and cherished in
his dreams--striven for by Jeff and Bill, revelling in the homage of
Mexicans and hard-drinking round-up hands, whose natural language was
astench with uncleanliness. It was like beholding a dainty flower in
the grime and brutality of the branding pen.
"I'm sorry, Jeff," he said, in a far-away voice. "I--I'd do anything I
could for you--but I'm afraid of those sheep."
He dragged miserably through the remnant of their conversation and
then lay staring at the stars while his hulk of a partner, this great
bear who in his awkward good nature had trampled upon holy ground,
slept peacefully by his side. The Pleiades fled away before Orion, the
Scorpion rose up in the south and sank again, the Morning Star blinked
and blazed like a distant fire, such as shepherds kindle upon the
ridges, and still Hardy lay in his blankets, fighting with himself.
The great blackness which precedes the first glow of dawn found him
haggard and weary of the struggle. He rose and threw wood on the
coals of last night's fire, cooked and ate in silence, and rode away.
There was a great burden upon his soul, a great fire and anger in his
heart, and he questioned the verities of life. He rode up the river
gloomily, searching the southern wilderness with frowning, bloodshot
eyes, and once more, far to the east where the jagged cliffs of the
Superstitions sweep down to the gorge of the Salagua and Hell's Hip
Pocket bars the river's sweep, he saw that vague, impalpable haze--a
smoke, a dust, a veil of the lightest skein, stirred idly by some
wandering wind, perhaps, or marking the trail of sheep. And as he
looked upon it his melancholy gaze changed to a staring, hawk-like
intentness; he leaned forward in the saddle and Chapuli stepped
eagerly down the slope, head up, as if he sniffed the battle.