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Truly he was trying to muster arguments and reasons whereby he could persuade his mentor to move the scrub yearlings, now quartered at the Cliffs, up to the stables and corrals with the rest of the cattle. For this midget, David Lannarck, was very human. Possessed of an alert and active mind, he had, throughout adulthood, ever been classified as a child.
South of its unenclosed limits there flows a rapid-running stream, down in whose barren valley are placed the long unsightly wooden stables, the big square corrals for quartermaster's stock, the huge stacks of hay and straw, and vast piles of cord-wood.
Brayley was going through the fringe of trees toward the house, evidently to speak with Mr. Crawford upon some range business. Conniston strolled slowly down toward the corrals, stopping and loitering when he had got there.
Once more that unhuman shriek echoed from hill to hill and from building to building. It was Satan in his box stall. The flames were eating through the partition, and the stallion was mad with fear. Lights flashed, here and there, in the big ranch house; and from the bunk-house on the farther side of the corrals rose a volley of curses and yells of dismay.
Send somebody round to the corrals, and let me know where they stabled their horses. If they left any papers or saddle-bags, get them for me." Fifteen minutes later Collins was in the saddle ready for the chase, and only waiting for his volunteer posse to join him.
Their weapons were lost; the turtles in the corrals were swept away; their cooking utensils had vanished. Had they heeded Oomah without delay it would have been different. They had escaped with nothing but their lives; but, even for this they were grateful even though it meant days of suffering in the rain-drenched forest before they could again replace their loss.
With that Jean strode off, going around the barn, straight out the orchard lane to the open flat, and then climbing a fence to the north of the village. Presently he reached a line of sheds and corrals, to which he held until he arrived at the road. This point was about a quarter of a mile from Greaves's store, and around the bend. Jean sighted no one.
Lawler had halted when he heard the woman's voice; he now stepped back in the narrow hallway, against the open door, to give the woman room to pass him. Turning his back to the stairs, unconcernedly waiting, subconsciously realizing that the woman was descending, he gazed past the station building to see the empty corrals on the other side of the railroad track.
The snow was not so deep there, having blown considerably in the open places. Some one was pounding iron in the blacksmith shop; horses were cavorting in the corrals; cattle were bawling round the hay-ricks in the barn-yard. The hunter knocked on Columbine's door. "Come in," she called. Wade entered, to find her alone.
The dance was set for Christmas night at Walling's, a horse-ranch where there were women, situated in a high, watered valley shut in by foothills, sixteen miles from the nearest town. The cabin with its roof of shakes, the sheds and corrals, can be seen from any divide between Packer's ferry and the Fayette. The "boys" had been generally invited, with one exception to the usual company.
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