Abandoned implements littered the dooryard; a rusted hay rake
with one wheel gone, a broken mower with cutter-bar drunkenly erect,
and the front trucks of a dilapidated wagon.
The Texan's eyes rested sombrely upon the remnant of a rocking-horse,
still hitched by bits of weather-hardened leather to a child's
wheelbarrow whose broken wheel had once been the bottom of a wooden
pail--and he swore, softly.
Up the creek he could see the cottonwood grove just bursting into leaf
and as they rounded the corner of a long sheep-shed, whose soggy straw
roof sagged to the ground, a coyote, disturbed in his prowling among
the whitening bones of dead sheep, slunk out of sight in a weed-patch.
Entering the grove, the men halted at a point where the branches of
three large trees interlaced. It was darker, here. The moonlight
filtered through in tiny patches which brought out the faces of the men
with grotesque distinctness and plunged them again into blackness.
Gravely the Texan edged his horse to the side of the pilgrim.
"Get off!" he ordered tersely, and Endicott dismounted.
"Tie his hands!" A cowboy caught the man's hands behind him and
secured them with a lariat-rope.
The Texan unknotted the silk muffler from about his neck and folded it.
"If it is just the same to you," the pilgrim asked, in a voice that
held firm, "will you leave that off?"
Without a word the muffler was returned to its place.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147