“In other words—if we hadn’t discovered this murder, the flock would be practically wiped out by the time the camp-tender got here?”
“Maybe all gone.”
“Even if they send up a man right away there will be some losses.”
“We start to-morrow,” Pete explained laboriously. “To-morrow sunset before we reach tel—tel—talk-over-wire? Another sunset, maybe another sunrise, before herder can come all long way. Plenty likely can’t get no one. Cattlemen rich—mighty—many. Maybe no one want the job.”
“And we can’t start to-night?”
“Trail too dark. Maybe couldn’t catch the horse. Run fast in the dark.”
Hugh turned quickly. “What horse do you mean?”
Pete smiled again, very dimly. “Eyes maybe half blind. Horse grazing just inside the forest, just outside meadow. Herders always have one horse, maybe two.”
Hugh had not noticed: his eyes were not trained to penetrate the thickets as those of the Indian. And at once he made up his mind as to the morning’s work. After all, it was only decent to get word to the owner of the flock as soon as possible. He would not permit his own hunting trip to stand in the way. It was true that he had been looking for a good excuse to return to civilization, and now he had it; but it was not without some unexpected regrets. He had received a new point of view in this visit to the camp, and he felt that he would enjoy a few more days in the evergreen forest. But even the Old Colonel would understand why it was necessary that he change his plans. In the morning they would catch the horse, place the herder’s body upon it, and go down with their story to the settlements. He wondered if there would be a bereaved family to face; he hoped that this, at least, would be spared him. The murdered man looked like a South-European, evidently of the class of shiftless and uneducated men from which most flock owners have to recruit their herders.
His mind flew back to the Old Colonel, sitting in the Greenwood Club. Some way, the memory of the old man was more clear than any time since he had come. It seemed to him that he could remember, word for word, all that the old sportsman had told him. Curiously he had not remembered being so impressed at the time. In some dim under-consciousness he realized that there would be further instructions for him now; but just what they were he did not permit himself to guess. He was eager to return,—go back to God’s country.