The candle guttered wildly on the floor. It had burnt almost to the wood and now the remnant of the wick stood in a little sprawling pool of grease white at the outer edges.
Bard yawned, and patted idly the blanket where it touched on the shape of the revolver beneath. In another moment that candle would gutter out and they would be left in darkness.
He said: "That's the best yarn I've heard in a good many days; it's enough to make any one sleepy—so here goes."
And he turned deliberately on his side.
Nash, his eyes staring with incredulity, sat up slowly among his blankets and his hand stole up toward the noose of the lariat. A light snore reached him, hardly a snore so much as the heavy intake of breath of a very weary, sleeping man; yet the hand of Nash froze on the lariat.
"By God," he whispered faintly to himself, "he ain't asleep!"
And the candle flared wildly, leaped, and shook out.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SWIMMING OF THE SAVERACK
Over the face of Nash the darkness passed like a cold hand and a colder sense of failure touched his heart; but men who have ridden the range have one great power surpassing all others—the power of patience. As soundlessly as he had pushed himself up the moment before, he now slipped down in the blankets and resigned himself to sleep.