“Promise me again before you go that you will come back here before you relinquish your homestead to Boyle,” she demanded. “Promise me that, no matter what the lawyer’s opinion may be, you’ll return here before you do anything else at all.”
“I promise you,” said he.
When he had ridden a little way he halted his horse and turned in his saddle to look back. She was sitting there in the sun, her head bowed, her hands clasped over her face, as if she wept or prayed. A little while he waited there, as if meditating a return, as if he had forgotten something–some solace, perhaps, for which her lips had appealed to his heart dumbly.
Yet a sincere man seldom knows these things, which a trifler is so quick to see. He did not know, perhaps; or perhaps he was not certain enough to turn his horse and ride back to repair his omission. Presently he rode on slowly, his head bent, the bridle-reins loose in his hand.
CHAPTER XVII
A PLAN
The man who had supplied the horse-blanket for covering the dead sheep-herder had taken it away, but the board upon which they had stretched him still lay under the tree where they had left it. There was blood on it where the wound had drained, a disturbing sight which persisted in meeting Agnes’ eye every time she came out of the tent. She was debating in her mind whether to throw the board in the river or split it up and burn it in the stove, when Smith came along and claimed it.
“Scarce as wood’s goin’ to be in this valley six months from now,” Smith remarked, rubbing dust over the stain which did not appear to give him any qualms, “a man’s got to take care of it. That’s a shelf out of my store.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll ever put goods on it again.”
“Sure. Why not?”