Part 47 (1/2)

THE FALLING OF NIGHT

It had been hard to gauge the falling of night on this day, and even the careful eyes of the watchers on the c.u.mberland Ranch could not tell when the greyness of the sky was being darkened by the coming of the evening.

All day there had been swift alterations of light and shadow, comparatively speaking, as the clouds grew thin or thick before the wind. But at length, indubitably, the night was there. Little by little the sky was overcast, and even the lines of the falling rain were no longer visible. Before the gloom of the darkness had fully settled over the earth, moreover, there came a change in the wind, and the watchers at the rain-beaten windows of the ranch-house saw the clouds roll apart and split into fragments that were driven from the face of the sky; and from the clean washed face of heaven the stars shone down bright and serene. And still Dan Barry had not come.

After the tumult of that long day the sudden silence of that windless night had more ill omen in it than thunder and lightning. For there is something watching and waiting in silence. In the living room the three did not speak.

Now that the storm was gone they had allowed the fire to fall away until the hearth showed merely fragmentary dances of flame and a wide bed of dull red coals growing dimmer from moment to moment. Wung Lu had brought in a lamp--a large lamp with a circular wick that cast a bright, white light--but Kate had turned down the wick, and now it made only a brief circle of yellow in one corner of the room. The main illumination came from the fireplace and struck on the faces of Kate and Buck Daniels, while Joe c.u.mberland, on the couch at the end of the room, was only plainly visible when there was an extraordinarily high leap of the dying flames; but usually his face was merely a glimmering hint in the darkness--his face and the long hands which were folded upon his breast.

Often when the flames leapt there was a crackling of the embers and the last of the log, and then the two nearer the fire would start and flash a glance, of one accord, towards the prostrate figure on the couch.

That silence had lasted so long that when at length the dull voice of Joe c.u.mberland broke in, there was a ring of a most prophetic solemnity about it.

”He ain't come,” said the old man. ”Dan ain't here.”

The others exchanged glances, but the eyes of Kate dropped sadly and fastened again upon the hearth.

Buck Daniels cleared his throat like an orator.

”n.o.body but a fool,” he said, ”would have started out of Elkhead in a storm like this.”

”Weather makes no difference to Dan,” said Joe c.u.mberland.

”But he'd think of his hoss----”

”Weather makes no difference to Satan,” answered the faint, oracular voice of Joe c.u.mberland. ”Kate!”

”Yes?”

”Is he comin'?”

She did not answer. Instead, she got up slowly from her place by the fire and took another chair, far away in the gloom, where hardly a glimmer of light reached to her and there she let her head rest, as if exhausted, against the back of the seat.

”He promised,” said Buck Daniels, striving desperately to keep his voice cheerful, ”and he never busts his promises.”

”Ay,” said the old man, ”he promised to be back--but he ain't here.”

”If he started after the storm,” said Buck Daniels.

”He didn't start after the storm,” announced the oracle. ”He was out in it.”

”What was that,” cried Buck Daniels sharply.

”The wind,” said Kate, ”for it's rising. It will be a cold night, to-night.”

”And he ain't here,” said the old man monotonously.

”Ain't there things that might hold him up?” asked Buck, with a touch of irritation.

”Ay,” said the old rancher, ”they's things that'll hold him up. They's things that'll turn a dog wild, too, and the taste of blood is one of 'em!”

The silence fell again.

There was an old clock standing against the wall. It was one of those tall, wooden frames in which, behind the gla.s.s, the heavy, polished disk of the pendulum, alternated slowly back and forth with wearisome precision. And with every stroke of the seconds there was a faint, metallic clangor in the clock--a falter like that which comes in the voice of a very old man. And the sound of this clock took possession of every silence until it seemed like the voice of a doomsman counting off the seconds. Ay, everyone in the room, again and again, took up the tale of those seconds and would count them slowly--fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three--and on and on, waiting for the next speech, or for the next popping of the wood upon the hearth, or for the next wail of the wind that would break upon the deadly expectancy of that count.