Part 24 (2/2)

”No I was jest thinkin' Nothin' that ait outside of our supper an' sneak up to the tunnel soon's it gits dusk enough to light the lantern”

CHAPTER XIII

A ROPE BREAKS

The lantern, turned down, diures of three h table The flap was drawn and fastened Occasionally a figure uessed that the three partners were ensconced in the blackfor developments they were fairly sure would start with darkness Every little while Sandy twitched a line that was attached to a clumsy but effective rocker he had contrived beneath one of the dummies they had built from the stuff that Plimsoll had not reclai too er but I'll be derned if it don't look natcherul”

After which they all relapsed into silence, restrained frorance carried by the wind It was a dark night, the hillsides stood blurry against a blue-black sky in which the stars glittered like ht Later, , a ht spots or glows of fire marked the occupied claim-sites From the camp itself there came a murmur that so over the lower end of the valley; reflection and diffusion frohts and acetylene flares used by the owners of the eating-houses, the bars and ga ht and day

From the mouth of the tunnel the three watched theDipper around its pivot, the North Star;time by the sidereal clock of the heavens, each with a variant emotion

Mormon shi+fted his position more frequently than the others None of them was especially comfortable, but Mormon wanted to keep as li always of his challenge to Roaring Russell Slow to anger, More mounted was slow of statement What he said he meant The insult to Miranda Bailey while under his escort chafed hialled horse It had to be wiped out at the earliest h, the spinster was not particularly prominent in the matter It was not a personal question; the insult had been offered to womanhood, and Mormon was ever its champion and its victim

Sam, cut off froainst a fraure of Sandy silhouetted against the stars, wondering why Sandy had stopped so abruptly when the names of Westlake and Molly Casey had been coupled It wasn't like Sandy to move or halt without definite purpose, Saers Molly too much of a kid,” he told himself ”If these claims pan out she'll be rich Likewise, so e”

His thoughts shi+fted to dreams of what he would do when they ealthy Very far beyond the purchase of an elaborate saddle and outfit, a horse or two he coveted, the finest harht have felt a tinge of jealousy toward young Westlake was furthest from his conjectures

As for Sandy, he had lost hiswas happening within him and he could not tell the process nor naoes out into the darkness aes hich he considers himself familiar and suddenly--there comes a door where should be space, or space where there should be a --and he is lost, his senses betray his lost, possessed with the blankness that accoht of self-confidence

He could see very plainly in mental vision the picture that Molly had sent to the Three Star, now fraiven the place of honor on the table of the ranch-house living-roo look of womanhood, that Sandy had now and then seen there and which had thrilled hiely, had beco so vital she could not be dismissed fro her to school whence she would return alnized He had deliberately given her his hand to help her out of the rut in which he had found her and noith the swift series of tableaux conjured up by Saether, lovers, Sandy realized the gap that idening between Molly and hiard hi?

To Sandy, Westlake see him at about twenty-three or four He felt ih there were not more than six years between thee of Molly With this twist of his reverie he realized that Molly was no longer to be considered as a girl

Toward the little maid he had poured out protectiveness, affection and, while his vials were e, she had crossed the brook Into what had his affection shi+fted with the changing of Molly to wo heel, had never attempted to find solution for his attitude too froher side of men careless of conventions, had been, in theperiods when he rode alone under sun and stars with only his horse for company

There wereperiods of relaxation in a cattle tohere ies and appetites have full sway Sandy loved card chances where his own skill ht hi bouts, the company of the women hom many of his fellows consorted, never appealed to hi or in the acceptance of soh, where success and self-safety hung upon his coolness, his keen sense, his courage and his skill with horse and lariat and gun A life as apart as a sailor's, more lonely, for he was often companionless for , least of all lately, with the two men he liked best in active partnershi+p with hi interest in the developrade of cattle by modern , to have her wooed and won, entirely absorbed by so loss that anosis Westlake orthy enough A goodup the ladder of education and culture to stand where the engineer, well-bred, well-ether

”Shucks!” muttered Sandy ”And he ain't even seen her picture I must have been chewin' loco weed”

”What say?” asked Saoin' to take a li'l' look-see,” said Sandy ”I reckon they're tryin' to git warmed up an' decide on what they'll do round here No tellin' how long they may take or what kind of deviltry that camp booze may work 'em up to I'm pritty certain no one saw us sneak out of the tent afteh dahk”

If they had been seen no attee them from the claims Sandy did not believe such effort would turn out to be a shootingof a dynaht, was a possibility if enough crude whisky had been absorbed In all probability the crowd of oustedthe earlier hours of the evening in view of a needed alibi Nothing il was not co to the ground, instantly indistinguishable even to Saone up-hill or down The mo that a human was abroad

”Have a chaw?” Mored his pose

Saratefully

”I sure hate stickin' around, waitin',” he said under his breath ”Allus makes me plumb nerv'us”