“Of course you do, but your friends will know why you do it.”
“Why do I do it?”
“Because you know it’s right. The cattlemen had the range first. Their living is tied up in cattle, and your sheep are ruining the feed for them. Yesterday when I was out riding I counted the bones of eight dead cows.”
He nodded gravely. “Yes, in this country sheep are death to cows. I hate to be a quitter, but I hate worse to take the bread out of the mouths of a dozen families. Two days ago I had an offer for my whole bunch, and to-morrow I’m going to take the first instalment over the pass and drive them down to the railroad.”
“But you’ll have to cross the dead line to get over the pass,” she said quickly; for all Cattleland knew that a guard had been watching his herds to see they did not cross the pass.
“Yes. I’m going to send Alan with a letter to Farnum. I don’t think there will be any opposition to my crossing it when my object is understood,” he smiled. 175
Melissy watched him ride away, strong and rugged and ungraceful, from the head to the heel of him a man. Life had gone hard with him. She wondered whether that were the reason her heart went out to him so warmly.
As she moved about her work that day and the next little snatches of song broke from her, bubbling forth like laughter, born of the quiet happiness within, for which she could give no reason.
After the stage had gone she saddled her pony and rode toward the head of the pass. In an hour or two now the sheep would be pouring across the divide, and she wanted to get a photograph of them as they emerged from the pass. She was following an old cattle trail which ran into the main path just this side of the pass, and she was close to the junction when the sound of voices stopped her. Some instinct made her wait and listen.
The speakers were in a dip of the trail just ahead of her, and the voice of the first she recognized as belonging to the man Boone. The tone of it was jubilantly cruel.