He turned and strode to his horse. For years he had been her faithful cavalier and he knew he was no closer to his heart's desire than when he began to serve. The first faint stirrings of rebellion were moving in him. It was not that he blamed her in the least. She was scarcely nineteen, the magnet for the eyes of all the unattached men in the district. Was it reasonable to suppose that she would give her love to a penniless puncher of twenty-eight, lank as a shad, with no recommendation but honesty? None the less, Jack began to doubt whether eternal patience was a virtue.
Chapter XIV
The Gun-Barrel Road
Jack Goodheart followed the gun-barrel road into a desert green and beautiful with vegetation. Now he passed a blooming azalea or a yucca with clustering bellflowers. The prickly pear and the cat-claw clutched at his chaps. The arrowweed and the soapweed were everywhere, as was also the stunted creosote. The details were not lovely, but in the sunset light of late afternoon the silvery sheen of the mesquite had its own charm for the rider.
Back of the saddle he carried a "hot roll" of blankets and supplies, for he would have to camp out three or four nights. Flour, coffee, and a can of tomatoes made the substance of his provisions. His rifle would bring him all the meat he needed. The one he used was a seventy-three because the bullets fired from it fitted the cylinder of his forty-four revolver.
Solitude engulfed him. Once a mule deer stared at him in surprise from an escarpment back of the mesa. A rattlesnake buzzed its ominous warning.
He left the road to follow the broad trail made by the Flying V Y herd. A horizon of deep purple marked the afterglow of sunset and preceded a desert night of stars. Well into the evening he rode, then hobbled his horse before he built a camp-fire.
Darkness was still thick over the plains when he left the buffalo wallow in which he had camped. All day he held a steady course northward till the stars were out again. Late the next afternoon he struck the dust of the drag in the ground swells of a more broken country.
The drag-driver directed Goodheart to the left point. He found there two men, One of them—Dad Wrayburn—he knew. The other was a man of sandy complexion, hard-faced, and fishy of eye.
"Whad you want?" the second demanded.