Trailin'! Part 51

"Sail right. Long's you know him, you're as good as gold with me. Come on along to the barn and we'll knock down a feed for the hoss."

He chuckled as he led the way.

"For that matter, there ain't any I know that can say they're friends to William Drew, though there's plenty that would like to if they thought they could get away with it. How's he lookin'?"

"Why, big and grey."

"Sure. He never changes none. Time and years don't mean nothin' to Drew.

He started bein' a man when most of us is in short pants; he'll keep on bein' a man till he goes out. He ain't got many friends--real ones--but I don't know of any enemies, neither. All the time he's been on the range Drew has never done a crooked piece of work. Every decent man on the range would take his word ag'in'--well, ag'in' the Bible, for that matter."

They reached the barn at the end of this encomium, and Bard unsaddled his horse. The other watched him critically.

"Know somethin' about hosses, eh?"

"A little."

"When I seen you, I put you down for a tenderfoot. Don't mind, do you?

The way you talked put me out."

"For that matter, I suppose I am a tenderfoot."

"Speakin' of tenderfoots, I heard of one over to Eldara the other night that raised considerable h.e.l.l. You ain't him, are you?"

He lifted the lantern again and fixed his keen eyes on Bard.

"However," he went on, lowering the lantern with an apologetic laugh, "I'm standin' here askin' questions and chatterin' like a woman, and what you're thinkin' of is bed, eh? Come on with me."

Upstairs in the house he found Bard a corner room with a pile of straw in the corner by way of a mattress. There he spread out some blankets, wished his guest a good sleep, and departed.

Left to himself, Anthony stretched out flat on his back. It had been a wild, hard day, but he felt not the slightest touch of weariness; all he wished was to relax his muscles for a few moments. Moreover, he must be away from the house with the dawn-first, because Sally Fortune might waken, guess where he had gone, and follow him; secondly because the news of what had happened at Drew's place might reach Wood at any hour.

So he lay trying to fight the thought of Sally from his mind and concentrate on some way of getting back to Drew without riding the gauntlet of the law.

The sleep which stole upon him came by slow degrees; or, rather, he was not fully asleep, when a sound outside the house roused him to sharp consciousness compared with which his drowsiness had been a sleep.

It was a knocking at the door, not loud, but repeated. At the same time he heard Jerry Wood cursing softly in a neighbouring room, and then the telltale creak of bedsprings.

The host was rousing himself a second time that night. Or, rather, it was morning now, for when Anthony sat up he saw that the hills were stepping out of the shadows of the night, black, ugly shapes revealed by a grey background of the sky. A window went up noisily.

"Am I runnin' a hotel?" roared Jerry Wood. "Ain't I to have no sleep no more? Who are ye?"

A lowered, muttering voice answered.

"All right," said Jerry, changing his tone at once. "I'll come down."

His steps descended the noisy stairs rapidly; the door creaked. Then voices began again outside the house, an indistinct mumble, rising to one sharp height in an exclamation.

Almost at once steps again sounded on the stairs, but softly now. Bard went quietly to the door, locked it, and stole back to the window. Below it extended the roof of a shed, joining the main body of the house only a few feet under his window and sloping to what could not have been a dangerous distance from the ground. He raised the window-sash.

Yet he waited, something as he had waited for Sally Fortune to speak earlier in the night, with a sense of danger, but a danger which thrilled and delighted him. No game of polo could match suspense like this. Besides, he would be foolish to go before he was sure.

The walls were gaping with cracks that carried the sounds, and now he heard a sibilant whisper with a perfect clearness.

"This is the room."

There was a click as the lock was tried.

"Locked, d.a.m.n it!"

"Shut up, Butch. Jerry, have you got a bar, or anything? We'll pry it down and break in on him before he can get in action."

"You're a fool, McNamara. That feller don't take a wink to get into action. Sure he didn't hear you when you hollered out the window? That was a fool move, Wood."

"I don't think he heard. There wasn't any sound from his room when I pa.s.sed it goin' downstairs. Think of the nerve of this bird comin' here to roost after what he done."

"He didn't think we'd follow him so fast."

But Anthony waited for no more. He slipped out on the roof of the shed, lowered himself hand below hand to the edge, and dropped lightly to the ground.

The grey, at his coming, flattened back its ears, as though it knew that more hard work was coming, but he saddled rapidly, led it outside, and rode a short distance into the forest. There he stopped.

His course lay due north, and then a swerve to the side and a straight course west for the ranch of William Drew. If the hounds of the law were so close on his trace, they certainly would never suspect him of doubling back in this manner, and he would have the rancher to himself when he arrived.

Yet still he did not start the grey forward to the north. For to the south lay Sally Fortune, and at the thought of her a singular hollowness came about his heart, a loneliness, not for himself, but for her. Yes, in a strange way all self was blotted from his emotion.

It would be a surrender to turn back--now.

And like a defeated man who rides in a lost cause, he swung the grey to the south and rode back over the trail, his head bowed.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

"TODO ES PERDO"

It was not long after the departure of Bard that Sally Fortune awoke.

For a step had creaked on the floor, and she looked up to find Steve Nash standing in the centre of the room with the firelight gloomily about him; behind, blocking the door with his squat figure, stood Shorty Kilrain.

"Where's your side-kicker?" asked Nash. "Where's Bard?"

And looking across the room, she saw that the other bunk was empty. She raised her arms quickly, as if to stifle a yawn, and sat up in the bunk, holding the blanket close about her shoulders. The face she showed to Nash was calmly contemptuous.

"The bird seems to be flown, eh?" she queried.

"Where is he?" he repeated, and made a step nearer.