Trailin'!

“This place for rest”

As the white heat of midday passed and the shadows lengthened more and more rapidly to the east, the sheep moved out from the shade and from the tangle of the brush to feed in the open, and the dogs, which had laid one on either side of the man, rose and trotted out to recommence their vigil; but the shepherd did not change his position where he sat cross-legged under the tree.

Alternately he stroked the drooping moustache to the right and then to the left, with a little twist each time, which turned the hair to a sharp point in its furthest downward reach near his chin.  To the right, to the left, to the right, to the left, while his eyes, sad with a perpetual mist, looked over the lake and far away to the white tops of the Little Brothers, now growing blue with shadow.

Finally with a brown forefinger he lifted the brush of moustache on his upper lip, leaned a little, and spat.  After that he leaned back with a sigh of content; the brown juice had struck fairly and squarely on the centre of the little stone which for the past two hours he had been endeavouring vainly to hit.  The wind had been against him.

All was well.  The spindling tops of the second-growth forest pointed against the pale blue of a stainless sky, and through that clear air the blatting of the most distant sheep sounded close, mingled with the light clangour of the bells.  But the perfect peace was broken rudely now by the form of a horseman looming black and large against the eastern sky.  He trotted his horse down the slope, scattered a group of noisy sheep from side to side before him, and drew rein before the shepherd.

“Evening.”

“Evening, stranger.”

“Own this land?”

“No; rent it.”

“Could I camp here?”

The shepherd lifted his moustache again and spat; when he spoke his eyes held steadily and sadly on the little stone, which he had missed again.

“Can’t think of nobody who’d stop you.”

“That your house over there?  You rent that?”

He pointed to a broken-backed ruin which stood on the point of land that jutted out onto the waters of the lake, a crumbling structure slowly blackening with time.

“Nope.”

A shadow of a frown crossed the face of the stranger and was gone again more quickly than a cloud shadow brushed over the window on a windy city in March.

“Well,” he said, “this place looks pretty good tome.  Ever fish those streams?”

“Don’t eat fish.”

“I’ll wager you’re missing some first-class trout, though.  By Jove, I’d like to cast a couple of times over some of the pools I’ve passed in the last hour!  By the way, who owns that house over there?”

“Same feller that owns this land.”

“That so?  What’s his name?”

The other lifted his shaggy eyebrows and stared at the stranger.

“Ain’t been long around here, eh?”

“No.”

“William Drew, he owns that house.”

“William Drew?” repeated the rider, as though imprinting the word on his memory.  “Is he home?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll ride over and ask him if he can put me up.”

“Wait a minute.  He may be home, but he lives on the other side of the range.”

“Very far from here?”

“Apiece.”

“How’ll I know him when I see him?”

“Big feller—­grey—­broad shoulders.”

“Ah!” murmured the other, and smiled as though the picture pleased him.  “I’ll hunt him up and ask him if I can camp out in this house of his for a while.”

“Well, that’s your party.”

“Don’t you think he’d let me?”

“Maybe; but the house ain’t lucky.”

“That so?”

“Sure.  There’s a grave in front of it.”

“A grave?  Whose?”

“Dunno.”

“Well, it doesn’t worry me.  I’ll drop over the hill and see Drew.”

“Maybe you’d better wait.  You’ll be passin’ him on the road, like as not.”

“How’s that?”

“He comes over here on Tuesdays once a month; to-morrow he’s about due.”

“Good.  In the meantime I can camp over there by that stream, eh?”

“Don’t know of nobody who’d stop you.”

“By the way, what brings Drew over here every month?”

“Never asked him.  I was brung up not to ask questions.”

The stranger accepted this subtle rebuke with such an open, infectious laugh that the shepherd smiled in the very act of spitting at the stone, with the result that he missed it by whole inches.

“I’ll answer some of the questions you haven’t asked, then.  My name is Anthony Bard and I’m out here seeing the mountains and having a bully time in general with my rod and gun.”

The sad eyes regarded him without interest, but Bard swung from his horse and advanced with outstretched hand.

“I may be about here for a few days and we might as well get acquainted, eh?  I’ll promise to lay off the questions.”

“I’m Logan.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Logan.”

“Same t’you.  Don’t happen to have no fine-cut about you?”

“No.  Sorry.”

“So’m I. Ran out an’ now all I’ve got is plug.  Kind of hard on the teeth an’ full of molasses.”

“I’ve some pipe tobacco, though, which might do.”

He produced a pouch which Logan opened, taking from it a generous pinch.

“Looks kind of like fine-cut—­smells kind of like the real thing”—­here he removed the quid from his mouth and introduced the great pinch of tobacco—­“an’ I’ll be damned if it don’t taste a pile the same!”

The misty eyes centred upon Bard and a light grew up in them.

“Maybe you’d put a price on this tobacco, stranger?”

“It’s yours,” said Bard, “to help you forget all the questions I’ve asked.”

The shepherd acted at once lest the other might change his mind, dumping the contents of the pouch into the breast pocket of his shirt.  Afterward his gaze sought the dim summits of the Little Brothers, and a sad, great resolution grew up and hardened the lines of his sallow face.

“You can camp with me if you want—­partner.”

A cough, hastily summoned, covered Bard’s smile.

“Thanks awfully, but I’m used to camping alone—­and rather like it that way.”

“Which I’d say, the same goes here,” responded the shepherd with infinite relief, “I ain’t got much use for company—­away from a bar.  But I could show you a pretty neat spot for a camp, over there by the river.”

“Thanks, but I’ll explore for myself.”

He swung again into the saddle and trotted whistling down the slope toward the creek which Logan had pointed out.  But once fairly out of sight in the second-growth forest, he veered sharply to the right, touched his tough cattle-pony with the spurs, and headed at a racing pace straight for the old ruined house.

Even from a distance the house appeared unmistakably done for, but not until he came close at hand could Bard appreciate the full extent of the ruin.  Every individual board appeared to be rotting and crumbling toward the ground, awaiting the shake of one fierce gust of wind to disappear in a cloud of mouldy dust.  He left his horse with the reins hanging over its head behind the house and entered by the back door.  One step past the threshold brought him misadventure, for his foot drove straight through the rotten flooring and his leg disappeared up to the knee.

After that he proceeded more cautiously, following the lines of the beams on which the boards were nailed, but even these shook and groaned under his weight.  A whimsical fancy made him think of the fabled boat of Charon which will float a thousand bodiless spirits over the Styx but which sinks to the water-line with the weight of a single human being.

So he passed forward like one in a fabric of spider-webs almost fearing to breathe lest the whole house should puff away to shreds before him.  Half the boards, fallen from the ceiling, revealed the bare rafters above; below there were ragged holes in the flooring.  In one place a limb, torn by lightning or wind from its overhanging tree, had crashed through the corner of the roof and dropped straight through to the ground.

At last he reached a habitable room in the front of the house.  It was a new shell built inside the old wreck, with four stout corner-posts supporting cross-beams, which in turn held up the mouldering roof.  In the centre was a rude table and on either side a bunk built against the wall.  Perhaps this was where Drew lived on the occasions of his visits to the old ranchhouse.

Out of the gloom of the place, Bard stepped with a shrug of the shoulders, like one who shakes off the spell of a nightmare.  He strode through the doorway and took the slant, warm sun of the afternoon full in his face.

He found himself in front of the only spot on the entire premises which showed the slightest care, the mound of a grave under the shelter of two trees whose branches were interwoven overhead in a sort of impromptu roof.  From the surface of the mound all the weeds and grasses had been carefully cleared away, and around its edge ran a path covered with gravel and sand.  It was a wellbeaten path with the mark of heels still comparatively fresh upon it.

The headstone itself bore not a vestige of moss, but time had cracked it diagonally and the chiselled letters were weathered away.  He studied it with painful care, poring intently over each faint impression.  He who cared for the grave had apparently been troubled only to keep the stone free from dirt—­the lettering he must have known by heart.  At length Bard made out this inscription: 

Here sleeps

Joan

Wife of William drew

She chose this place for rest