"Well, that mile was the worst in my life. I thought maybe the man I"d sent on ahead hadn"t been able to leave me a relay at McCauley"s, and if he hadn"t I knew I"d die somewhere in the hills beyond. And they looked as black as dead men, and all sort of grinnin" down at me.
"But when I got to McCauley"s, there stood a hoss right in front of the house. It didn"t take me two second to make the saddle-change. And then I was off agin!"
A sigh of relief came from Byrne and Kate.
"That hoss was a beauty. Not long-legged like Bess, nor half so fast, but he was jest right for the hills. Climbed like a goat and didn"t let up. Up and up we goes. The wind blows the clouds away when we gets to the top of the climb and I looks down into the valley all white in the moonlight. And across the valley I seen two little shadows slidin", smooth and steady. It was Dan and Satan and Black Bart!"
"Buck!"
"My heart, it stood plumb still! I gives my hoss the spurs and we went down the next slope. And I don"t remember nothin" except that we got to the Circle K Bar after a million years, "most, and when we got there the piebald flops on the ground--near dead. But I made the change and started off agin, and that next hoss was even better than the piebald--a sure goer! When he started I could tell by his gait what he was, and I looked up at the sky----"
He stopped, embarra.s.sed.
"And thanked G.o.d, Buck?"
"Kate, I ain"t ashamed if maybe I did. But since then I ain"t seen or heard Dan, but all the time I rode I was expecting to hear his whistle behind me, close up."
All the life died from her face.
"No, Buck, if he"d a followed all the way he would have caught you in spite of your relay. No, I understand what happened. After a while he remembered that Mac Strann was waiting for him back in Brownsville. And he left your trail to be taken up later and went back to Brownsville.
You didn"t see him follow you after you left the Circle X Bar?"
"No. I didn"t dare look back. But somehow I knew he was comin"."
She shook her head.
"He won"t come, Buck. He"ll go back to meet Mac Strann--and then----"
She ran to the chair of Buck swiftly and caught his hands: "What sort of a man is Mac Strann?"
But Buck smiled strangely up into her face.
"Does it make any difference," he said, "to Dan?"
She went slowly back to her place.
"No," she admitted, "no difference."
"If you came by relays for twenty-four hours," said the doctor, numbering his points upon accurate fingertips, "it is humanly impossible that this man could have followed you very closely. It will probably take him another day to arrive."
But here his glance fell upon old Joe c.u.mberland, and found the cattleman smiling faintly to himself.
Buck Daniels was considering the last remark seriously.
"No," he said, "it _ain"t_ possible. Besides, what Kate says may be true. She ought to know--she says he"ll wait for Mac Strann. I didn"t think of that; I thought I was savin" Dan from another--well, what a d.a.m.n fool I been!"
He unknotted his bandana and with it mopped his face to a semblance of cleanliness.
"It was the ridin" that done it," he explained, shame-faced. "You put a man on a hoss for a certain time, and after a while he gets so he can"t think. He"s sort of nutty. That was the way with me when I come in."
"Open the window on the veranda," said Joe c.u.mberland. "I want to feel the wind."
The doctor obeyed the instruction, and again he noted that same quiet, contented smile on the lips of the old man. For some reason it made him ill at ease to see it.
"He won"t get here for eight or ten hours," went on Buck Daniels, easing himself into a more comfortable position, and raising his head a little higher. "Ten hours more, even if he does come. That"ll give me a chance to rest up; right now I"m kind of shaky."
"A condition, you will observe, in which Mr. Barry will also be when he arrives," remarked the doctor.
"Shaky?" grinned Buck Daniels. "M"frien", you don"t know that bird!" He sat up, clenching his fist. "And if Dan _does_ come, he can"t affo"d to press me too far! I"ll take so much, and then----"
He struck his fist on the arm of the chair.
"Buck!" cried Kate c.u.mberland. "Are you mad? Have you lost your reason?
Would you _face_ him?"
Buck Daniels winced, but he then shook his head doggedly.
"He had his chance down in Brownsville," he said. "And he didn"t take it. Why? Because my back was turned? Well, he could of got in front of me if he"d been terrible anxious. I"ve seen Dan in action; he"s seen _me_ in action! Maybe he"s seen too much. They"ve been stranger things than that, in this world!" He hitched his belt so that the b.u.t.t of his revolver came farther forward. But now Kate c.u.mberland advised: "Buck, you"re tired out; you don"t know what you"re saying. Better go up to bed."
He flushed a ruddy bronze.
"D"you think I"m jest talkin" words, Kate, to hear myself talk?"
"Listen!" broke in Joe c.u.mberland, and raised a bony forefinger for silence.
And the doctor noted a great change in the old man. There was no longer a tremor in his body. There was only a calm and smiling expectation--a certainty. A tinge of colour was in his withered face for the first time since Byrne had come to the ranch, and now the cattleman raised his finger with such an air of calm authority that at once every voice in the room was stilled.
"D"ye hear?"
They did not. They heard only the faint rushing of the air through the window. The flame danced in the chimney of the lamp and changed the faces in phantastic alteration. One and all, they turned and faced the window. Still there was not a sound audible, but the doctor felt as if the noise were approaching. He knew it as surely as if he could see some far-off object moving near and nearer. And he knew, as clearly, that the others in the room felt the same thing. He turned his glance from the window towards Kate c.u.mberland. Her face was upturned. There was about it a transparent pallor; the eyes were large and darkly ringed; the lips parted into the saddest and the most patient of smiles; and the slender fingers were interwoven and pressed against the base of her throat.
For the first time he saw how the fire that was so manifest in the old man had been consuming her, also. It left no mark of the coming of death upon her. But it had burned her pure and left her transparent as crystal. Pity swelled in the throat of Byrne as he realised the anguish of her long waiting. Fear mingled with his pity. He felt that something was coming which would seize on her as the wind seizes on the dead leaf, whirling her off into an infinity of storm and darkness into which he could not follow a single pace.
He turned back towards the window. The rush of air played steadily, and then in pulses, upon his face. Then even the wind ceased; as if it, too, were waiting. Not a sound. But silence has a greater voice than discord or music. It seemed to Byrne that he could tell how fast each heart was beating.
The old man had closed his eyes again. And yet the rigid forefinger remained raised, and the faint smile touched at the corners of his mouth. Buck Daniels sat lunging forward in his chair, his knees supporting his elbows, and scowled up at the window with a sort of sullen terror.
Then Byrne heard it--so small a voice that at first he thought it was only a part of the silence. It grew and grew--in a sudden burst it was clear to every ear--the honking of the wild geese!
And Byrne knew the picture they made. He could see them far up in the sky--a dim triangle of winter grey--moving with the beat of lightning wings each in an arrowy flight north, and north, and north. Creatures for sport all the world over; here alone, in all the earth, in the heart of this mountain-desert, they were in some mysterious wise messengers.
Once more the far discord showered down upon them, died as they rose, perhaps, to a higher level, and was heard no more.
CHAPTER XX