So Pete rose and tightened his belt, and went his ways; and that in no less than time, for the horses were already restive, as though the loneliness of the place had taken possession of them. Of all beasts I know, I think horses the most influenced by their environment.
"Well, if this don't beat cock-fightin'!" I heard Mr. Pinkerton's voice behind me, where he lay now, leaning on an elbow; and then he said a word or two to the half-breed, who rose and departed out of the circle of the fire-shine.
In a little space he returned, leading his own mount and Pinkerton's by the lariats which were around their necks, and as he made fast these lariats to a stone Farrell looked at Mr. Pinkerton across the glow, and asked him, suspicious as ever, "What's that for?"
"Oh! Just so as not to be indebted to you," replied Pinkerton, and coming closer to the fire he rolled his one grey blanket round him and, knocking out the ashes of his pipe, lay down to rest, the half-breed following suit. But after they had lain down, and when I, a little later, at a word from Donoghue, suggesting I should "turn in," unpacked my blankets, which I had found among the pile of our mixed belongings, I saw the half-breed's eyes still open and with no sign of sleep in them. "So," said I to myself, "Pinkerton and the half-breed, I expect, have arranged to share watch and watch, without having the appearance of doing so."
And indeed one could scarcely wonder at any such protective arrangement in such a camp as this. Donoghue and Apache Kid, indeed, were the only two there who could close their eyes in sleep that night with anything like a reasonable belief that the chances of their awakening to life again were greater than their chances of never breathing again the sage-scented air of morning.
CHAPTER XIV
Apache Kid Prophesies
ou may wonder how it was possible for me to lie down, to roll myself round in my blankets, to fall asleep in such a camp, in such company as that. I, indeed, wondered at myself as I did so, wondered how I came by the heedlessness, for I cannot call it courage, that allowed me to compose myself to slumber. Anything might have happened in the dark hours, murder and sudden death; but I was excessively fatigued; my body ached; my nerves too were unstrung by the torture of the cliff. Sleep I must and sleep I did, on the instant that I stretched myself and laid down my head. Perhaps the sigh with which I dismissed from my mind the anxieties that might have kept me wakeful was more of a prayer than a sigh.
Across the fire of smaller branches that had cooked our supper, in the preparing of which each took part, a great log was laid, so that no replenishing would be necessary.