Part 39 (1/2)

”He was down. He hurt his hand; got it shut under Webb's window. He....

He stayed a long time.”

Her voice was quite changed; rather soft and reverent. ”I'm glad he did. When he's there I feel like I ain't so different ... not so awful different from other folks....”

Alf did not reply. The wagon chucked heavily on, the brush scratched the wagon bed, the horses plodded listlessly. Dawn came....

Another thing:

Far out to the north and west of the Gap in Devil's Hole was a natural reservoir, Cathedral Tank. Winter floods were stored there and long after surrounding miles of quickly growing gra.s.ses had become useless as range because of the lack of drink, this tank afforded water for the H C cattle. Late in the Spring, of course, it became sc.u.m covered and fetid but until the caked silt commenced to show on the boulder basin the cattle would cling there, saving higher range for later use. Then, in other years, they would drift up toward the Hole, graze through the Gap and water in the creek until the round-up caught and carried them into still higher country.

This spring the desert tank was of far greater importance than ever before. The Hole was closed to the HC unless rain fell, and the days were uniformly clear, so it was wisdom to delay the round-up until the tank was emptied, then shove the cattle straight past the mouth of the Hole and start them up country from the lower waters of Coyote Creek.

Beck rode to the tank himself and arranged his plans in accordance with the water he found.

But after Beck had been there another horseman made the ride, leaving the timber at dusk, shacking along across the waste country in a straight line for the tank. Cattle, bedded for the night about the water hole, stirred themselves as he approached and dismounted, then stood nearby and watched a strange proceeding. The man found a crevice in the rock basin, sc.r.a.ped deeply into it with a clasp knife. Then he wedged in five sticks of dynamite with stones and, finally, rolled boulders over them.

He led his horse far back after the fuse had been spit, but even where he stood, outside the circle of steers, rock fell. After the explosion had died into the night he pulled at his mustache and regained his saddle rather deliberately, chuckling to himself.

The fact that a steer with a broken leg was bawling loudly and that another, its life torn out of its side, moaned softly in helplessness, did not impress him. He rode back as he had come.

There was little time for love making in the life of the HC foreman.

More riders were necessary for the round-up and he was particular about the men he hired. The country had taken sides; rather, it was either openly behind Beck in his handicapped fight, though skeptical of his chances for winning or openly forecasting failure for him and Jane Hunter; and of the latter Tom had his doubts. Many of them were not neutral, he knew.

But he was with Jane when he could be although, since he had declared himself to Webb and Hepburn, he did not permit her to ride far from the ranch, even when with escort. He wanted her witness to no tragedy, and tragedy impended.

Of the motives of Webb, Hepburn, Cole and their following he had no doubts but there was one whose reasons were a mystery to him. He studied this long hours, when at work, when lying sleepless on his bunk and even when with Jane Hunter. Hilton was at Webb's and that was enough to brand him ... but how deeply? He hesitated to enlist her aid in the solution but when he had spent days puzzling to no result he said to her:

”Nothing about what you have been matters with me, but there's one thing I want to ask you.”

”And that?”

He eyed her a speculative moment as they sat beside her desk, the yellow light on her yellow hair.

”What was this Hilton to you?”

She colored and dropped her gaze from his, picking at a book in her lap.

”That belongs to the past,” she said, ”and you've just said that the past doesn't matter. I had hoped you never would want to know because it touches a spot that isn't healed yet....

”There was a time,” lifting her eyes to his, ”when I had made up my mind to marry d.i.c.k Hilton.”

He sat very quietly and his expression did not change.

”That would have been too bad, Jane,” he said after a moment.

She nodded slowly in affirmation.

”I'd rather he wasn't in the country just now,” he went on. ”You wouldn't mind, would you, if I drove him out?”