“The thing cuts with both edges, and the farmer only sees one of them,” he said. “That beast’s about as difficult to mistake as my black is.”
Then he returned to the loghouse, and presently put on Witham’s old fur coat and tattered fur cap. Had Witham seen his unpleasant smile as he did it, he would probably have wheeled the black horse and returned at a gallop, but the farmer was sweeping across the waste of whitened grass at least a league away by this time. Now and then a half-moon blinked down between wisps of smoky cloud, but for the most part grey dimness hung over the prairie, and the drumming of hoofs rang stridently through the silence. Witham knew a good horse, and had bred several of them—before a blizzard which swept the prairie killed off his finest yearlings as well as their pedigree sire—and his spirits rose as the splendid beast swung into faster stride beneath him.
For two weeks at least he would be free from anxiety, and the monotony of his life at the lonely homestead had grown horribly irksome. Witham was young, and, now when for a brief space he had left his cares behind, the old love of adventure which had driven him out from England once more awakened and set his blood stirring. For the first time in six years of struggle he did not know what lay before him, and he had a curious, half-instinctive feeling that the trail he was travelling would lead him farther than Montana. It was borne in upon him that he had left the old hopeless life behind, and, stirred by some impulse, he broke into a little song he had sung in England, long and forgotten. He had a clear voice, and the words, which were filled with the hope of youth, rang bravely through the stillness of the frozen wilderness until the horse blundered, and Witham stopped with a little smile.
“It’s four long years since I felt as I do to-night,” he said.
Then he drew bridle and checked the horse as the lights of the settlement commenced to blink ahead, for the trail was rutted deep and frozen into the likeness of adamant, but when the first frame houses flung tracks of yellow radiance across the whitened grass he dropped his left arm a trifle and rode in at a canter as he had seen Courthorne do. Witham did not like Courthorne, but he meant to keep his bargain.
As he passed the hotel more slowly a man who came out called to him. “Hello, Lance! Taking the trail?” he said. “Well, it kind of strikes me it’s time you did. One of Stimson’s boys was down here, and he seemed quite anxious about you.”
Witham knew the man, and was about to urge the horse forward, but in place of it drew bridle, and laughed with a feeling that was wholly new to him as he remembered that his neighbours now and then bantered him about his English and that Courthorne only used the Western colloquialism when it suited him.
“Sergeant Stimson is an enterprising officer, but there are as keen men as he is,” he said. “You will, in case he questions you, remember when you met me.”
“Oh, yes,” said the other. “Still, I wouldn’t fool too much with him—and where did you get those mittens from? That’s the kind of outfit that would suit Witham.”
Witham nodded, for though he had turned his face from the light the hand he held the bridle with was visible, and his big fur gloves were very old.