The boy wanted to ask questions about this daughter of Bob Thorpe's, but a diffidence, for which there was no accounting, held him back. He was curious as he had been whenever he heard of or thought of her, and as he had been when he had once seen her. But somehow he did not care to admit that curiosity even to Jed, and when he tried to analyze the reason for his reticence there was no doing so.
Now came more knowledge of the waste places with weeks of riding; more knowledge of the barren area in his own heart with self-study; more pertinent, that which the Captain typified.
And all the time that struggle continued, which at times seemed only the hopeless floundering of a man in quicksands—life on the river bank so close; death below, certain, mocking his efforts.
"He has faith in himself because he is physically equipped," VB murmured one day as he saw the Captain standing against the sky on a distant ridge. "His belief in himself is justified. But I—what do I know about my own capabilities?"
Yet a latent quality in the boy was the sort that offsets doubts, else why this emulation of the stallion, why this feeling that was almost love, constant, always growing, never hesitating?
Like most men, Young VB was unprepared for the big moments of his life. Could we only foresee them, is the plaint of men! Could we only know and go out to meet them in spirit proper! And yet that very state of preparation might take from the all-encompassing grandeur of those passages a potent element.
After all, this scheme of things has its compensations, and inability to foretell the future may be one of the greatest.
With fear in his heart and black discouragement and lack of faith, Young VB went out to meet what proved to be his first great moment.
Jed had gone to the railroad, bound for the Springs, to untangle a mess of red tape that had snarled about his filing on some land. VB was left alone, and for days the young fellow saw no one. In the natural loneliness that followed, the assault came upon him with manifold force. He could not sleep, could not eat, could not remain in one place or keep his mind on a fixed purpose.
He walked about, talking to himself in the silence, trying ineffectually to do the necessary work of the ranch, trying to stifle the loud voice that begged him to forego all the struggle and let his impulses carry him where they would.