The days were getting noticeably shorter, and the advance breath of the long, tight winter was beginning to add a new snap to the air. The noises of the camp drifted up over the grade fitfully, dreamily; some new hunger that might have been called homesickness was urging a new tone into the evening sounds.
Torrance, the stability of his work assured, imagined that he was supremely happy. But life had lost a fraction of its zip, though he refused to acknowledge it.
But Tressa knew it. Idleness was worse than medicine to her father, and for days he had been fuming with impatience for the opening of the last operation, more than a little irritable. She knew it as she watched the smoke breathe more slowly from his lips and the pipe grow cold. Presently, without opening his eyes, he dropped the pipe on the table and nestled his head against the cushion. Tressa smiled, for she was happier than her father—and Adrian would be up shortly.
She heard the familiar whistle break out far down the sloping path beyond the grade. Higher and higher it mounted, and with hand held she listened with smiling eyes. She would keep on with her mending as if she had not heard; and the whistle would grow more impatient as it approached, calling her to reply.
Now he was half way up the slope—now only a few yards beyond the grade. She grabbed her mending and began to work industriously. Now he was on the grade—he would see her sitting there working as if she had forgotten there was an Adrian Conrad.
But just then the whistle ceased abruptly. That was not part of the formula, but she would not raise her eyes; he would break out in a moment more impatiently than ever, and she would look up as if she had just heard—
She looked up sooner than she reckoned, for the silence continued. Yet she anticipated only by a second Conrad's flying entrance, his face tense with a sudden alarm. Without a word he seized the rifle from its rack beside the door and dashed to the kitchen. Torrance blinked himself awake at the scurry.
"Wha-at-what—"
Conrad turned in the kitchen doorway and pressed finger to lip. They found him kneeling on the floor beside the kitchen window, the rifle pointing over the sill past the side of the stable.
Torrance, still blinking with sleep, looked along the rifle barrel. For several seconds he could see nothing but the dead grey grass. Then a dim movement focussed his eyes. A hundred yards away the Indian was creeping toward them.