There were summer and winter camps for the sheep and our objective point was an old place, acquired with the ranch, which had been converted into a winter camp. During the summer it was unoccupied.
We drove along laughing and talking. Owen’s nephew carried his gun and kept a sharp lookout for coyotes. It was a glorious day and we were in the mood to appreciate all its beauty.
The meadows, waist deep in native hay, were flecked with the gold of the prairie sun flowers. The wild roses grew in tangled masses everywhere, their perfume mingled with the odor of the sage which yielded up its aromatic sweetness as the wheels crushed the silvery leaves. The plains were mottled with the shade of fleecy clouds which floated lazily across the sky, the changing lights flooded the hills with dazzling sunshine, then veiled them softly with faint cloud shadows. A delicate haze hung over the more distant hills, and behind the mountains thunderheads were gathering.
The road ran directly past the camp and long before we reached it we could see the old house, forbidding in its isolation, standing on a high mesa above the creek. It had been built years before by a settler named La Monte, whose footsteps misfortune had dogged until she overtook him at last. His wife deserted him and, broken in heart and fortune, he had left the country. Bohm held a mortgage on the place and it had passed into his possession.
An air of abandonment surrounded the camp even in winter when it was occupied, but during the summer when it was totally deserted the ghosts of dead happiness stalked unheeded through the silent rooms. Rank weeds filled the yards, the plaintive notes of the wood-doves in the cotton-woods by the creek and the weird, haunting howl of the coyotes were the only sounds to break the silence.
There was a tale connecting old Bohm with the La Monte tragedy for which an affair with Mrs. La Monte was responsible. We were some distance from the house, the rest of the party were intent on watching a big jack-rabbit which was bounding lightly across the prairie, but I was thinking of the wretched story which the sight of the old house always recalled, when the door was slowly opened and a naked man paused for a moment on the threshold then walked down the steps into the yard.
I gave a gasp, my eyes fixed on that advancing figure, the others looked around but in that instant the man had seen us and dropped down into the tall weeds, by which he was completely hidden.
“What’s the matter?” Owen asked, surprised by my exclamation.
“Why, Owen, a man without any clothes on just came out of that door and is there in the weeds.”
Owen turned toward the yard, there was no one in sight; he looked at me in amazement. He knew I must be in earnest! I was not given to “seeing things”.