Part 38 (2/2)

And miles further on, when the roan had cooled from his first desperate dash that had carried Tom to unquestionable safety for the night, he said aloud:

”Now what was _he_ doin' there? And how much will he count?”

CHAPTER XVII

HIS FAITHFUL LITTLE PONY

In the days that followed you might have seen approaching from a distance a rider for the HC. Watching, you would have noticed that he stopped his horse, rode on, stopped again, rode on and stopped the third time. Had you not halted and repeated the performance he would not have come toward you and, on coming within eyesight, you might have seen him sitting with a hand on his holster, or rifle scabbard--for the deadlier weapons appeared--carelessly enough, outwardly, but latent with disaster. For war had been declared. Jane Hunter's men were ready for trouble, waiting for trouble, but it did not come at once for though Hepburn and Webb and their following hated Tom Beck for the man he was they respected him and gave heed to his warning to stay away from HC property ... or at least not to be seen thereabouts.

The war went on, but it was a silent, covert struggle, and though Beck suspected happenings, he could not know all that transpired.

For instance:

It was Webb who finally dropped the pliers and declared the job finished, standing back to survey the stout cedars which had been bound together with wire to form a gate for one of the numerous little blind draws that stabbed back into the parapet which surrounded Devil's Hole.

In the recesses of that draw was the smallest amount of seeping water, enough, say, to keep young calves alive. From a distance of a hundred yards this barricade of tough boughs and steel strands would not be detected.

Again:

They came up from the mouth of the Hole after dusk had fallen, Bobby Cole and her father, the old horses drawing the wagon along the indistinct track which wound through the sage. They were tired and silent and finally the girl's head dropped to Cole's shoulder and she slept, with his arm about her, holding her close, his lids and mustache and shoulders drooping.

The wagon halted, hours later, before the blocked draw and, straddled upon their bodies, the girl liberated first one calf, then another, until six had been shoved from the tail gate into the hidden pen. Then they drove back toward their cabin.

”Why don't I think it's wrong to steal?” the girl asked soberly.

Alf shook his head. ”It ain't ... for us....”

”But I've read that it is,” she protested, scowling into the darkness.

”I read it in a book, about a man that stole; that book said it was wrong. Why don't I think it's wrong?”

She turned her face to him and he looked down to see, under the starlight, her mouth pathetically drooping, her lips trembling, and the big brown eyes filled with perplexed tears.

”Why'm I so different from other folks? Maybe that's why I never had no friends....”

”It ain't wrong for you to steal from her,” he said defensively.

The girl looked ahead again.

”No, it can't be. I hate her.... I like to steal from her. But why ain't it wrong for me if it's wrong for anybody else?”

”I've allus told you it was the thing to do. Ain't that enough?” he asked wearily....

”Did you see him this mornin'?”--as if to change the subject.

Bobby nodded her head.

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