“Visitors ain’t popular here,” he muttered. “Far be it from me to disturb anybody’s privacy. I don’t need no second hint, you darned fool. Save your powder.”
Half a mile at headlong gallop, and he pulled up to listen. No sound of pursuit. No breath of air stirred. Nothing. He might have been a solitary soul in a darkened void. That silence could be felt. He rode on at the same jog trot.
“Now, what was all that about, back there, I wonder?” he said to himself.
He was still wondering when he dropped down the north bank of the Marias, forded a clear shallow river that sang a welcome song in a night that held a touch of frost, and into which Crepe and the pack pony dipped their muzzles thirstily. And this puzzled wonder still persisted in Charlie’s mind half an hour later, when he snuggled down in his unfolded bed beside the TL stable wall, inside which his horses contentedly munched hay. His last conscious thought was of that strange, whispering sound in the night, and the reason for those shots. And it was the first thing in his mind when he opened his eyes to bright sunshine pouring into the valley, and “Rock” Holloway inquiring jovially why in blazes he didn’t use the bunk house instead of the open air for sleeping purposes.
“I just got in during the night, myself,” Rock told him. “Been riding with the Maltese Cross. Come on and have some breakfast.”
Nona Holloway smiled at Charlie. Neither she nor her husband asked questions. Charlie Shaw had ridden for her long before Rock came into the Marias country, when she was a slim, sad wisp of a girl, with a baby sister and a bunch of cattle on her hands and a strange quality of exciting the admiration and respect of every man she came in contact with. Rock had fallen in love with her and married her, and the TL had waxed prosperous under their joint control. And Charlie Shaw had drifted out of their employment for reasons that he could never think about, much less discuss. He didn’t know why he drifted in there now, except that these two were his friends, and he knew he was welcome, and it was on his way, because, when he parted with the Seventy-seven, he had decided to head for Fort Benton in search of a job. He would not ask Rock for a job. A foolish pride forbade, although he had never been able to rid himself of a feeling that the TL was home.
So he ate breakfast and merely remarked that he was through with the Seventy-seven and on his way. And after breakfast, as he and Rock stood on the porch, Charlie looked out over the valley with a touch of regret. Four years is a long time, and just that period had elapsed since Rock Holloway came jogging across Lonesome Prairie, to look his first on the silver band of the Marias, to find himself faced at this very ranch with a tragic emergency. And now, Charlie reflected, Rock had a wife and a son and three thousand cattle and a ranch that was a tiny kingdom in itself. They had fought side by side against high-handed thieves. Charlie had drifted, and Rock had taken root. Peace and prosperity and happiness had come to him and the girl to whom Charlie had been a loyal servant before Rock took a hand in the game. Charlie knew all about it. He had watched the drama enacted. Some men were lucky, and some were wise. He himself was neither, he supposed.
He looked out on irrigated meadows which gave their harvest into ranked stacks of hay. The river bank was cluttered with painted buildings. Lines of fence, inclosing choice pastures, spread up and down the valley as far as he could see. He stole a look at Rock—a look that was wistful and wholly without envy. And Charlie was not thinking so much of land and cattle as the most desirable of Rock’s possessions. Consequently he was surprised to keen attention by the words that presently Rock uttered.
“I guess things have been coming too easy for us, too long,” Rock said. “We had a wild time here once, Charlie, and it looked like a tough game. Then we got organized, and it has been smooth as silk. I suppose there is always somebody who hasn’t got anything, cooking up a scheme for getting something for nothing.”
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked him bluntly.