"God knows that if I could, I'd change with you even now, Landor," he said repressedly. "I'd change with you gladly." A moment he stood so, tense as a wire drawn to the point of breaking, ghastly tense; then of a sudden he went lax. Instinctively his fingers sought his pockets, and there where he stood he started swiftly to roll a cigarette.
"Go, please," he requested. "Good-bye."
CHAPTER IX
THE VOICE OF THE WILD
Eight miles out on the prairie, out of sight of the Buffalo Butte ranch house—save for a scattering herd of grazing cattle in the distance, and a hobbled mouse-coloured broncho feeding near at hand, out of sight of every living thing—a man lay stretched full length upon the ground. It was the time of day that Landor had tried the door of Bob Manning's store, and the broad brim of the man's hat was pulled far forward to keep the glitter from his eyes. Under his head was a rolled-up blanket; an Indian blanket that even so showed against the brown earth in a blot of glaring colour. His hands were deep in his pockets; his moccasined feet were crossed. At first sight, an observer would have thought him asleep; but he was not asleep. The black eyes that looked forth motionless from beneath the hat brim, that apparently never for an instant left that scattering blot where, distorted, fantastic from distance and through the curling heat waves the herd grazed, were very wide awake indeed. They were not even drowsy or off guard. They were merely passive, absolutely passive. The whole body was passive, motionless, relaxed in every muscle and every nerve; and therein lay the marvel—to all save the thousandth human in this restless age, the impossibility. To be awake and still motionless, to do absolutely nothing, not even sleep—seemingly the simplest feat in life, it is one of the most difficult. A wild thing can do it, all wild things when need is sufficient; but man, modern man—Here and there one retains the faculty, as here and there one worships another God than wealth; but here and there only. Yet it was such an one that lay alone out there on the Dakota prairie that October day; one who, as Craig had said, hinted unfortunately of comic opera, but who never, even in remotest conception, fancied that comic opera existed, a dreamer and yet, notwithstanding, a doer, an Indian, and still not an Indian; Ma-wa-cha-sa by name.
With the approach of midday a light wind had arisen, and now, wandering northward, it tugged at the pony's long, shaggy mane and tail, set each individual hair of the little beast vibrating in unjustified ferocity; and, drifting aimlessly on, stirred the brittle grass stalks at the man's feet with the muffled crackling of a far-distant prairie fire. The herd, a great machine cutting clean every foot of the sun-cured grass in its path, moved on and on, reached a low spot in the gently rolling country, and passed slowly from view; then, still moving forward, took shape on the summit of the next rise, more distinct than before.
Time passed as the man lay there, time that to another would have been interminable, that to him was apparently unnoted. Gradually, as the full heat of the day approached, the breeze became stronger, set the heat waves dancing to swifter measure, sang audibly in the listener's ears its siren song of prairie and of peace. The broncho, its appetite temporarily satisfied, lay down fair in its tracks, groaned lazily in the action, and shut its eyes. It was the rest time of the wild, and the same instinct appealed to the leader of the distant herd. Down it went where it stood as the pony had done, disappeared absolutely from view. A moment later another followed, and another, and another. It was almost uncanny, there in the fantastic glimmer, that disappearance. In the space of minutes, look where one would, the horizon was blank. Where the herd had been there was nothing, not even a blot. It was as the desert, and the vanished herd a mirage. It was like the far northland tight in the grip of winter, like the ocean at night. It was the Dakota frontier at midday.
Again time passed and, motionless as at first, wide eyed, the man lay looking out. The pony was sound asleep now. Its nostrils widened and narrowed rhythmically and it snored at intervals. Save for this and the soft crackle of the grass and the aeolian song of the wind the earth was still; still as death; so still that, indescribably soft as it was immeasurably distant, the man detected of a sudden against it a new sound. But he did not stir. The black eyes looked out motionless as at first. He merely waited a minute, two—and it came again; a bit louder this time, more distinct, unmistakable.
This time the listener moved. Deftly, swiftly, he unrolled the gaudy blanket, spread it thin upon the ground, covered it completely with his body. In lieu of a pillow his arms crossed under his head, and, leaning back, the hat brim still shading his eyes, he lay gazing up into the sky, motionless as a prairie boulder.