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These were happy days to Patsy, happy to young Stanton, happier than she knew to Marion, and all the happier by contrast to the dark, sad days that followed. About three weeks after the Old Prospector's departure a half-breed, on a cayuse wet and leg-weary, appeared at the Loon Lake Stopping Place, asking for the preacher. "Blanked if I know!" growled Carroll. "Off on some fool hunt or other."
On through the shining moonlight and in the shadow of the hills he rode, and, where he might, through the trees, and stopped to listen often, to stare at the hill-tops, to question a heap of stones or a bush. At last, when his leg-weary horse was beginning to stumble a bit, he saw, as he came around a turn, Massacre Mountain's dark head rising in front of him, only half a mile away.
When the Ramblin' Kid, working the rope-conquered and leg-weary Gold Dust maverick from the North Springs back to the Quarter Circle KT, crossed the Cimarron at dawn Captain Jack and the filly swam a raging, drift-burdened river. Less than twelve hours later Carolyn June and Skinny, at the lower ford, rode into a stream that again was normal.
The noise of their hoofs was like the continuous roll of thunder and the cloud of dust so thick that the throat of Prince was swollen with it. It was only after the stampeded cattle had covered several miles that the formation of their aimless charge grew looser. The pace slackened as the steers became leg-weary. Now and again small bunches dropped from the drag or from one of the flanks.
Side by side they rode, drooping of shoulders, and yet with their bodies braced backward for the descent which at the top was rather steep. "Register cold horses leg-weary boys all in " read the script which Luck knew by heart.
On through the shining moonlight and in the shadow of the hills he rode, and, where he might, through the trees, and stopped to listen often, to stare at the hilltops, to question a heap of stones or a bush. At last, when his leg-weary horse was beginning to stumble a bit, he saw, as he came around a turn, Massacre Mountain's dark head rising in front of him, only half a mile away.
To get leg-weary in the open air, tramping about the sedgy slough-sides after mallard and canvas-back, to smell coffee and bacon and frying grouse in the cool of the evening, across a thin veil of camp-fire smoke, to see the tired world turn over on its shoulder and go to sleep it's all a sort of monumental lullaby.
Monday morning drew the cockneys from their roosts betimes, to take their farewell splash and dive in the sea. As the day advanced, the bustle and confusion on the shore and in the town increased, and everyone seemed on the move. The ladies paid their last visits to the bazaars and shell shops, and children extracted the last ounce of exertion from the exhausted leg-weary donkeys.
At last, sun-scorched and rain-beaten, foot-sore and leg-weary, their thighs torn to pieces by the stout briars, and their feet and hands blistered and scalded, they came out in Powell's Valley, and followed the well-worn hunter's trail across it. Thence it was easy to reach home, where the tale of their adventures excited still more the young frontiersmen.
About noon he set sail again. The wind sat in the north-east, but the wall of Pelion turned it into a light stern breeze which carried him swiftly westward. The four slaves, still leg-weary and arm-weary, lay like logs beside the thwarts. Two slept; one munched some salty figs; the fourth, the headman, stared wearily forward, with ever and again a glance back at his master.
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