The halter-rope was then unknotted, and the turns unwound from the center-post. Next, he pulled the crimson handkerchief from the horse’s eyes—shouted—and shook his hat at him!
Maddened, terrified, and with the dragging thing at his heels, the four-footed fury fought man, and earth, and air about him like the very demon that he was till he came to the gate that Lucas had set wide for him, and he saw again the waves of sage and sand hills (little waves of sweet-scented sage) that rippled away to the mountains he knew. Out there was liberty; out there was the free life of old; and there he could get rid of the thing at his heels that—with all his kicking, and rearing, and plunging—still dragged at the end of the rope.
Out through the wide set gate he passed, mad with an awful rage, and as with the wings of the wind. On, and on he swept; marking a trail through the sand with his burden. Faster and faster, and growing dim to the sight of the man who stood grim and motionless at the gate of the corral. Away! away to those far-lying mountains that are breakers on the beach of blue skyland!
A SHEPHERD OF THE SILENT WASTES
“TO be hung. To be hung by the neck until dead.”
Over and over I say it to myself as I sit here in my room in the hotel, trying to think connectedly of the events which have led to the culmination of this awful thing that, in so short a time, is to deprive me of life.
At eleven o’clock I am to die; to go out of the world of sunshine and azure seas, of hills and vales of living green, of the sweet breath of wild flowers and fruit bloom, of light and laughter and the music of Life, to——what? Where? How far does the Soul go? What follows that awful moment of final dissolution?
At eleven o’clock I shall know; for I must die. There is no hope, no help; though my hand has never been raised against mortal man or woman—never have I taken a human life.