“The children gave it to us,” and she faced him.
“Yes, yes, but we want them to have it from the start, like good folks.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. The memory of dead and gone madness twinkled there a moment, then each remembered:
“You must hurry, Jim. You haven’t a moment to lose. I dreamed it was to be to-night—they’ll come to-night!”
“The game’s all up, old girl! If I had a month I couldn’t get away. Morrison’s been looking for me over to the Owl Creek Range; he’s back—Stevens told me yesterday. He’ll be heading here soon. The price on my head is a strain on friendship.”
“Have the sheep-men gone back on you?”
“Yes, damn them! A thousand dollars is big money, and they’ve had hard luck!”
“They deserve it; I hope every herd in the State dies of scab.”
“There wasn’t a scabby sheep in our bunch. What a sight they were, loaded with tallow! There wasn’t one of them that couldn’t have weathered a blizzard; they could have lived on their own tallow for a month.”
She tried to divert his attention from his lost flock. When he began to talk about them the despair of his loss drove him to drink. She was ground between the millstones of his going or staying. If he stayed they would come for him; if he went, they would apprehend him before he was ten miles from the house.