"If you are sure that is so, you are wise," she said.
Before I could answer she moved away to greet Mrs. Leyland, and some time elapsed before we met again, for I bade Leyland farewell next morning.
CHAPTER XII
THE SELLING OF GASPARD'S TRAIL
The surroundings were depressing when, one evening, Steel and I rode home for the last time to Gaspard's Trail. The still, clear weather, with white frost in the mornings and mellow sunshine all day long, which follows the harvest, had gone, and the prairie lay bleak and gray under a threatening sky waiting for the snow. Crescents and wedges of wild fowl streaked the lowering heavens overhead as they fled southward in endless processions before the frost. The air throbbed with the beat of their pinions which, at that season, emphasizes the human shrinking from the winter, while the cold wind that shook the grasses sighed most mournfully.
There was nothing cheering in the prospect for a man who badly needed encouragement, and I smiled sardonically when Steel, who pushed his horse alongside me, said: "There's a good deal in the weather, and this mean kind has just melted the grit right out of me. I'll be mighty thankful to get in out of it, and curl up where it's warm and snug beside the stove. Sally will have all fixed up good and cheerful, and the west room's a cozy place to come into out of the cold."
"You must make the most of it to-night, then, for we'll be camping on straw or bare earth to-morrow," I said. "Confound you, Steel! Isn't it a little unnecessary to remind me of all that I have lost?"
"I didn't mean it that way," said the other, with some confusion. "I felt I had to say something cheerful to rouse you up, and that was the best I could make of it. Anyway, we'll both feel better after supper, and I'm hoping we'll yet see the man who turned you out in a tight place."
"You have certainly succeeded," I answered dryly. "When a man is forced to stand by and watch a rascal cheat him out of the result of years of labor, you can't blame him for being a trifle short in temper, and, if it were not for the last expectation you mention, I'd turn my back to-morrow on this poverty-stricken country. As it is——"
"We'll stop right here until our turn comes some day. Then there'll be big trouble for somebody," said Steel. "But you've got to lie low, Ormesby, and give him no chances. That man takes everyone he gets, and, if one might say it, you're just a little hot in the head."