“You fixed my mare?” she said sharply. “That’s all right,” she went on, as the old man reassured her. “We’ll get right on with the haying. The seasons don’t wait around for any foolishness. Do you get me? There’s going to be no more foolishness. Not a thing more, and not a word about it.”
So the evening had been passed without any explanation. He was never likely to forget that evening. Molly seemed suddenly to have grown years older. She ate her food and went about her work silently, deliberately. When he spoke to her, she replied sufficiently, in unemotional fashion. She never once smiled. It seemed as if all her youth had gone from her, as though an icy coldness had frozen up the last drop of the warm springs of her young heart.
Now Lightning was engaged upon the last of the haying. He was also engaged upon something else. At long last he had determined to discover the thing that had happened between the lovers from the other end of the affair—that end where no delicacy or scruple need be displayed.
He was perfecting his plans. He had thought them out in detail, and the result, in his view, was all he desired. This was the last cut of hay. To-morrow he would announce to Molly that the team must be re-shod. He would take them into Hartspool, and, on his way, he would call in at Andy McFardell’s homestead, and be prepared to deal with the man as he saw fit. He would certainly discover the thing that had happened.
It was nearly noon the next day when Lightning drove his team into the clearing of Andy McFardell’s homestead. He had had no difficulty in putting his plans into operation. Molly had agreed, after inspection of the lengthened hoofs of the team. So the old man had driven off, with his treasured guns carefully concealed in the wagon-box. Once beyond all chance of Molly’s observation, the weapons were taken from their place of concealment and adjusted about his lean body.
He gazed eagerly about him as he dodged the tree-stumps at the entrance to the clearing. The thing he expected to find had never been clear to him. But that which he did find was certainly the last thing he expected. Andy McFardell’s homestead was derelict. It was abandoned.
He drove his team right up to the miserable barn and got out of the wagon. The door of the building was nailed up. He stood for a moment considering it. Then he raised one heavily-booted foot, and launched it, sole first, against the crazy boarding. It gave on the instant, splintering and cracking. A second effort flung it open by the simple process of tearing it from its rusted hinges. He passed within.
A few moments later he returned into the full sunlight. Just for one moment he glanced at his drowsy team. Then he glanced round at the other buildings, all of which had been lightly boarded up. Finally he sought the hay corral. There was a small scattering of loose hay littering it, otherwise the place was empty.
He collected an armful of the hay. It was the best offering he could make to his team. He had tried the barn for feed, but had drawn a blank. So he came back to his horses, removed their bits, and, leaving them busily devouring the hay, passed on to complete his investigations.