The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

As the man walked toward his horse which had sidled a few steps away the big cook gazed after him and fingered the riot gun regretfully.

The wagon did not move on when the men had finished working the herd as the rest of the day had been set aside for kill-time. An hour after Slade's departure the hands were rolling in for a sleep. The girl saw Rile Foster draw apart from the rest and sit with his back against a rock. He was regarding some small object held in his hand. As he turned it around she recognized it as a boot heel and the reason for Rile's absence was clear to her. He had back-tracked the blue horse to the scene of the mishap.

She was half asleep when a voice some distance from the teepee roused her by speaking the name of Bangs.

"I've a pretty elastic conscience myself," the voice went on. "I'm not above lifting a few calves for the brand I'm riding for or any little thing like that, but this deal sort of gorges up in me. They'll never cinch it on to any man—they never do. Old Rile is brooding over it. He'll likely run amuck. One way or another he'll try to break even for Bangs."

Billie recognized the voice as Moore's and knew that one of her men, at least, had not forgotten Bangs. It was the first time an intimation that the affair was other than an accident had reached her ears.

In the evening, after resting, the men once more gathered round a fire for an hour's play. They had evidently blotted out the memory of a friend who had raised his voice with theirs on the last such event, for they sang mostly the rollicking airs with even more than the usual amount of chaff between songs. But there was one old favorite that they did not sing. At last Waddles swung into the tune of it and as they buried the poor cowboy far out on the lone prair-ee she noted the difference at once, and more clearly than ever before she divined the reason why cowhands were apparently so devoid of sentiment, refusing to be serious on any topic, passing off those things nearest to their hearts with a callous jest. It was only that there were so many rough spots in the hard life they led that they avoided dwelling too seriously on matters that could not be rectified lest they become gloomy and morose. There were warm hearts under the indifferent exteriors. For now the voices were soft and hushed and she knew that every man was thinking of the lonely mound of rocks that marked the last resting place of Bangs.

VII

The calf round-up was nearing the end. Two weeks would see the finish and supply the final tally. The figures had already progressed to the point where they gave evidence of another shrinkage from the count of the previous year; and during one of the weekly half-day periods of rest three members of the Three Bar personnel found their minds occupied with a problem which excluded all thoughts of sleep. The problem in each case was the same but each one viewed it from the individual standpoint of his own particular knowledge of the subject.

Harris sat on a rock and reviewed the plans he had formulated for the salvation of the Three Bar brand, realizing the weak spots and mapping out some special line of defense that might serve to strengthen them. In the seclusion of the wagon Waddles was carefully rereading a much-thumbed document for perhaps the hundredth time. A man had come in at daylight with the mail from Brill's and Billie Warren was within her teepee poring over her share of it. The men had finished theirs and were sleeping.