"They are stanch, at least, and above being bought," I said; and Mackay stiffened.
"What were ye meaning?"
"I think my meaning was plain enough," I answered him.
Many leagues divided us from the railroad, and the way seemed very long. The dejection that settled upon me brought a physical lassitude with it, and I rode wearily, jolting in the saddle before the journey was half done. Since the memorable night at Bonaventure, when I first met Boone, trouble after trouble had crowded on me, and, supported by mere obstinacy when hope had gone, I still held on. Now it seemed the end had come, and, at the best, I must retire beaten to earn a daily wage by the labor of my hands if I escaped conviction as a felon. Lane would absorb Crane Valley, as he had done Gaspard's Trail. As if in mockery the prairie had donned its gayest robe of green, and lay flooded with cloudless sunshine.
Mackay made no further advances since my last repulse, but rode silently on my right hand, Cotton on my left, holding back a little so that I could not see him, and so birch bluff, willows, and emerald levels rolled up before us and slid back to the prairie's rim until, towards dusk on the second day, cubes of wooden houses and a line of gaunt telegraph poles loomed up ahead.
"I'm glad," said Corporal Cotton, breaking into speech at last. "I don't know if you'll believe it, Ormesby, but this has been a sickening day to me. I'm tired of the confounded service—I'm tired of everything."
"Ye're young and tender on the bit, and without the sense to go canny when it galls ye. What ails ye at the service anyway?" interposed the sergeant.
"I'll say nothing about some of the duties. They're a part of the contract," answered Cotton. "Still, I never bargained to arrest my best friends when I became a policeman."
"Friends!" said Mackay. "Who were ye meaning?" and Cotton turned in my direction with the face of one who had narrowly escaped a blunder.
"Aren't you asking useless questions? I mean Rancher Ormesby."