CHAPTER VII
A MIDNIGHT EXTRA
Dr. Slavens sat on the edge of his cot, counting his money. He hadn’t a great deal, so the job was not long. When he finished he tucked it all away in his instrument-case except the few coins which he retained in his palm.
It would not last much longer, thought he. A turn would have to be made soon, or he must hunt a job on the railroad or a ranch. Walker had talked a lot about having Dr. Slavens come in on the new sheep venture with him, on the supposition, of course, that the physician had money. Walker had told him also a great deal about men who had started in that country as herders, “running a band of sheep” on shares, receiving so much of the increase of the flock year by year. Many of the richest sheepmen in that country had started that way only a few years before, so Walker and others said.
Perhaps, thought Dr. Slavens, there might be a chance to hook up with Walker under such an arrangement, put his whole life into it, and learn the business from the ground up. He could be doing that while Agnes was making her home on her claim, perhaps somewhere near–a few hundred miles–and if he could see a gleam at the farther end of the undertaking 105 after a season he could ask her to wait. That was the best that he could see in the prospect just then, he reflected as he sat there with his useless instrument-case between his feet and the residue of the day’s expenses in his hand.
Agnes had gone into the section of the tent sacred to the women; he supposed that she was going to bed, for it was nearly eleven o’clock. Strong and Horace were asleep in their bunks, for they were to take the early stage for Meander in the morning. Walker and William Bentley and Sergeant Schaefer were out.
The little spark of hope had begun to glow under Slavens’ breath. Perhaps Walker and sheep were the solution of his life’s muddle. He would find Walker before the young man took somebody else in with him, expose the true state of his finances, and see whether Walker would entertain a proposal to give him a band of sheep on shares.
Like every man who is trying to do something that he isn’t fitted to, because he has failed of his hopes and expectations in the occupation dearest to his heart, Slavens heated up like a tin stove under the trashy fuel of every vagrant scheme that blew into his brain.
Sheep was all that he could see now. Already he had projected ahead until he saw himself the complacent owner of vast herds; saw the miles of his ranches; saw the wool of his flocks being trampled into the long sacks in his own shearing-sheds. And all the time his impotent instrument-case shone darkly in the light of 106 his candle, lying there between his feet at the edge of the canvas bed.
With a sigh he came back from his long flight into the future, and took up his instrument-case with caressing hand. Placing it on his knees, he opened it and lifted the glittering instruments fondly.