"Sing me to sleep, daddy," commanded the autocrat.
"Sing! I can't sing, kid."
"Yes, you can. Sing 'Nellie Gray.'"
"Too hot, girlie. My breath's all gone. Go to sleep."
"Please, papa; pretty please!"
The man succumbed, as he knew from the first he would do, braced himself in the aperture, and sang the one verse that he knew of the song again and again—his voice rough and unmusical as that of a crow, echoing and re-echoing in the narrow space—bent over at last, touched his bearded lips softly to the winsome, motionless brown face, climbed, an irresistible catch in his breath, silently to the surface, sent one swift glance sweeping the bare earth around him, and returned to the cabin.
Very carefully that sultry afternoon he cleaned his old hammer shotgun, and, loading both barrels with buckshot, set it handy beside the door.
"Antelope," he explained laconically; but when likewise he overhauled the revolver hanging at his hip, Margaret was not deceived. This done, notwithstanding the fact that the sun still beat scorchingly hot thereon, he returned to the doorstep, lit his pipe, drew his weather-stained sombrero low over his face, through half-closed eyes inspected the lower lands all about, impassively silent awaited the coming of the inevitable. Of a sudden there was a touch on his shoulder, and, involuntarily starting, he looked up, into the face of Margaret Rowland.
The woman sat down beside him, her hand on his knee.
"Don't keep it from me," she requested steadily. "You've seen something."