Glendon studied the dumb agony in her face. It gave a new zest to his life. He knew that neither Powell nor Limber would tell her of the paper he had signed, so long as Donnie was not sent away; but, neither Powell nor Limber had thought they were giving him a weapon to use upon her—the torture of uncertainty that drives to madness.
So the days passed into weeks, but not once did Glendon allow her a glimmer of hope. All the while she waited for an answer to the letter she had written Aunt Jane. But, at last she gave that up in despair.
For three months the situation remained unchanged. Katherine grew haggard, her movements listless, and Donnie still watched his father's goings and comings with frightened eyes and beating heart.
The drouth was telling on Glendon's small herd, but he had more important things to think about now. His trips to Willcox were frequent; his periods in town stretched over many days. Katherine might have wondered, had she not been occupied with her own anxiety—Donnie.
Each time Glendon made preparations to drive to Willcox, she waited the command that would tear the boy from her. When trip after trip was made without the ordeal, her heart began to take courage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Arizona, like a pouting child, was indulging in one of her periodic drouths, and cattle were slowly succumbing to starvation. The winter snows and rains had been insufficient to start the Spring grass, and though it was now late in August and the summer rains usually began in June, not a drop had fallen.
Most of the water-holes were dry, and water in the wells of ranches sank further from the surface each day. Many springs considered permanent, degenerated into mere mudholes where cattle bawled and crowded one another into the bogs till the weakest fell and were suffocated or trampled to death. The country was not only devoid of green grass, but what dry feed was left contained no nutriment whatever.
Ranchers fortunate enough to own permanent springs, or wells that were not yet dry, guarded the water jealously, notifying neighbours to come and care for the stray cattle that lingered bellowing around the closed watering places, or walked aimlessly for miles beside the barbed wire fences that kept them from the water they could smell. Tiny calves trailed weakly behind skeleton cows; other cows abandoned their young; and all added hysterically to the din of constant bellowing wherever there was a pool of water to lure them.